Applying Sustainability Indicators to Measure Progress on Adaptation

March 6, 2018

Presented by:

• Kevin Behan (Deputy Director, Clean Air Partnership)
• Ewa Jackson (Managing Director, ICLEI Canada)

Adaptation indicators gauge the progress and effectiveness of independent adaptation actions as well as those measures being implemented as part of proposed or existing adaptation plans. When monitoring adaptation, it is important to consider the changes in actual impacts across similar weather events. This allows for differentiation between the effectiveness of adaptation actions and the actual climatic changes and weather events occurring that will affect how you are being impacted.

The indicators examined as part of this webinar are not intended to inform understanding of a changing climate and its impacts; instead, we studied process and outcome-based indicators used to measure sustainability in four sectors: coastal management, flood management, infrastructure, and health. These are sectors for which climate change risks are of great priority. Additionally, a “general” sector is profiled to capture those indicators that cut across multiple sectors or do not “neatly” fit into one. Existing sustainability indicators were selected as an appropriate lens for this project as they take social, economic, and environmental metrics into account while sufficiently narrowing the scope to ensure the applicability of research findings to the field of climate change adaptation.

This webinar also presents information on a project undertaking by the Measuring Progress Working Group of the Adaptation Platform titled ’Research into the Use of Climate Change Adaptation Indicators in OECD Countries: Lessons for Canada’. The purpose of this project was to review the selection and use of indicators to measure progress and effectiveness of climate change adaptation in selected OECD countries and identify lessons for measurement of adaptation in Canada.