Climate Change
Unlocking the Future, Chapter Two found the impact of climate change on current and future homeowners is already being felt through displacement due to catastrophic events, higher insurance premiums and compromised liveability. The estimated trend of the overall costs of catastrophic losses has increased from approximately $1 billion in 2005 to almost $2.5 billion in 2021 and continues to be on an upward trajectory. With that, RE/MAX Canada collaborated with Kathryn Bakos, Director of Climate Finance and Science at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation and Dr. Mike Moffatt, Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at Smart Prosperity Institute, to examines climate scenarios such as floods, wildfires and severe storm events and their impact on the housing market. Chapter two concludes that both climate mitigation and adaptation measures are integral to improving housing affordability, as well as liveability, and should be integrated into a national housing strategy over the next five years.
- Climate change mitigation and adaptation measures must both be integrated into national housing strategies.
- The immediate need to fund and invest in the restoration and modernization of Canada’s green infrastructure, such as wetlands, grasslands and brown infrastructure, including sewage systems, among other initiatives, must become a priority for all levels of government.
- To protect real estate from the disruption of climate change, new levels of transparency in buying and selling homes should be considered by key stakeholders specifically as it relates to the property’s climatic risk.
