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Introduction: North America

Climate change has various impacts on the three North American countries of Canada, Mexico and the US. Canada and the US have well-developed adaptive capacities and foster the strengthening of capacities in other regions as well. With high per capita emissions, these two countries also bear a greater responsibility for a changing climate. Mexico has a sound national strategy for climate change adaptation, yet fewer capacities than Canada and the US. The poorer and rural populations of Mexico are especially vulnerable to climate change, due to an increased sensitivity and a lower adaptive capacity.

Regional hotspots:

  • Extreme weather events such as hurricanes cause flooding and devastation across the Americas, affecting Mexican shorelines and the Southern US. These events can also trigger oil spills particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and Texas with their large extraction capacities.

  • Water scarcity is very pronounced in the Southwestern US and parts of Mexico, and set to increase as the climate changes, with implications for agricultural productivity. Environmental migration is one of the consequences.

  • Energy generation: oil extracted from tar sands, abundant in the Canadian province of Alberta, is even more damaging to the environment than conventional oil extraction, and worse still, possible additional pipelines are set to cut through protected areas. While unconventional natural gas extraction (fracking) fares better in terms of emissions, it also has devastating impacts on the landscape, affecting areas with large reserves such as Pennsylvania.

Climate change risks:

  • Droughts also increasingly affect areas such as the US Great Plains, severely damaging the agricultural sector.

  • Hurricanes are likely to occur more frequently and with greater intensity, affecting large parts of the region.

  • The melting Arctic provides an opportunity to access seabed fossil fuel resources, and it will open up new shipping routes and improve existing ones.

Socio-economic and socio-political challenges:

Canada and the US are politically stable and have a high adaptive capacity. But even so, natural disasters can cause immense damage, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although Mexico has less adaptive capacity than its northern neighbours and faces planning and managerial shortcomings, the country has a comprehensive strategy for addressing climate change challenges.

Regional cooperation:

In North America, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), established through an environmental side accord to the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) facilitates collaboration and public participation to foster environmental conservation and protection.

 

Sources:

Caribbean Community Secretariat (Caricom) 2011: Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate (MACC) Project. Guyana: Caricom

Caribbean Community Secretariat (Caricom): Promoting Caricom/Cariforum Food Security. Caricom, FAO.

CNA 2009: Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security. Report by the Military Advisory Board (MAB) of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA).

Footitt, A. 2007: Climate Change Policies and Canada`s Oil Sand Resources: An Update and Appraisal of Canada`s New Regulatory Framework for Air Emissions. Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research.

IPCC 2007: Climate Change 2007: Fourth Assessment Report of the International Panel for Climate Change. Chapter 16, Small Islands. Geneva: IPCC

IPCC 2014: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York.

McLeman, R. 2011: Climate change, migration and critical international security considerations. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.

United Nations 2011: Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Canada Withdrawal

UNODC, World Drug Report 2012 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.12.XI.1)

U.S. National Intelligence Council 2012: Global Water Security. Intelligence Community Assessment. Commissioned by the U.S. Department of State. Washington, DC.