A new resource helps cash-strapped municipalities build a business case for climate adaptation spending by appraising the greater cost of “doing nothing,” providing a practical budgeting tool for Canadian communities that increasingly face losses from climate-driven disasters.
“While the mounting costs of climate change present a serious fiscal and logistical challenge for municipalities, justifying the investment in adaptation measures can be difficult for municipalities whose budgets and capacities are already stretched,” writes ICLEI Canada, explaining the reasoning behind the development of its Cost of Doing Nothing (CODN) toolbox. The package of templates, spreadsheets, and case studies is meant to provide a “jumping off point for municipalities to assess the costs of doing nothing within their own local context, and support their own climate adaptation planning process.”
Find out more about this new community toolkit here.