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Climate Change Action Fund

Science

Overview

The Government of Canada established the Climate Change Action Fund in 1998 and allocated $15 Million over three years to Science Impacts and Adaptation (SIA). The initial overall goals of the SIA component were to:

• reduce the uncertainties in our knowledge of the magnitude, rate, and regional distribution of changes;
• determine the impact of these changes upon Canadians' health and safety, their environment, economy, and social fabric;

in order to better estimate the risks associated with climate change and to provide advice on appropriate options to address these risks.

Over the first three years, the SIA component had two main streams of activity:

• Climate system science , focusing on: systematic climate monitoring to detect climate change, as well as improve and validate our climate models; key climate processes (including those related to greenhouse gas sources and sinks); regional-scale climate modeling for impact and adaptation needs.
• Impacts and adaptation, focusing on: the study of the impacts of climate change on Canada, and development, assessment and implementation of adaptation responses.

In climate system science, 79 projects were funded, largely through support to a series of national workshops, followed by a series of open and targeted calls for proposals on the following topics: climate model improvements; climate monitoring; greenhouse gas sources and sinks; arctic climate; climate and weather extremes and; climate scenarios.

The broad objectives and goals of the program driving the first three years of the CCAF remained valid in the renewed CCAF (2001-2004). The National Implementation Strategy outlined four key areas of climate science requiring urgent attention: systematic observations of the climate; biological greenhouse gas sources and sinks; global and regional climate modelling, and; the development and provision of climate scenarios. Taking into consideration the measures on systematic climate monitoring and biological greenhouse gas sources and sinks contained in Action Plan 2000, the renewed CCAF addressed key issues on a limited number of topics, focusing on:

• global and regional-scale climate modeling for impact and adaptation needs;
• development and provision of climate scenarios for impacts and adaptation researchers;
• understanding key climate system processes of importance to Canada;
• assessment, evaluation, coordination and communication of climate system science.