This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on August 2, 2023.

The city of Delta, south of Vancouver, is home to 110,000 people. As the city’s name attests, Delta is surrounded by water. It is protected from a potential inundation of floodwaters, from either the Fraser River or the Salish Sea, by 67 kilometres of dikes.

The protection, however, is inadequate. The dikes are in – at best – mediocre condition. Long stretches likely could not hold back serious floodwaters. The estimated bill to repair and bolster the system is $1.9-billion. The city’s total annual budget is $350-million.

Start multiplying that sort of money across the country to come up with the sum needed to tackle exposure to floods – the country’s costliest disasters – and wildfires, a worsening hazard. The cost starts at vertiginous and gets dizzier from there. This is what’s on the table as Canada tentatively begins to face the challenges of adaptation to an ever-hotter climate.

The impact of climate heating metastasized this summer. Scientists call 2023 uncharted territory: the hottest June on record was followed by the hottest month ever recorded, period. It is Canada’s worst year for wildfires, by far. Smoke chokes major cities; research suggests smoke contributes to thousands of deaths each year. There is no safe place. Extreme heat, in the United States, Europe, China, becomes a normal part of summer.

Amid these lashings – heat, floods, wildfires – the urgency of climate adaptation has come to the fore. The federal Liberals published Canada’s first national strategy in June, after a draft was issued last fall. It’s a valuable document, a wideranging and solid start, but what it most of all shows is how much there is to grapple.

The idea of adaptation is pragmatic. Climate heating will be a central fact of life for decades to come. The No. 1 response must be to cut greenhouse-gas emissions as fast as possible. For everyone who says Canada is a small part of the problem, remember that Canadian per-capita emissions are threequarters greater than China’s.

Adaptation is equally challenging. It can be about everything – about all the infrastructure in every province. The document in June was several years in the making. That’s how long it took to get to the starting line.

A key message is that every dollar invested today will pay off big in future, in disaster losses avoided. One example Ottawa cited is potential gains from bolstered building codes that adhere to stricter flooding and wildfire standards. Each dollar spent now could save $12 later.

The strategy includes worthy goals, such as all levels of government working together to make sure at least 200 areas at higher risk of flooding are properly mapped. That’s supposed to be achieved by 2028.

This illustrates two things: first, Canada is still figuring out the basics; second, climate adaptation is about triage. The Climate Institute, a research group, and others advocate a focus on biggest risks, because a successful plan cannot hope to plug every hole in every dike. Ottawa’s adaptation strategy nods in that direction; it says protecting the most vulnerable communities “should be prioritized.”

But adaptation ultimately includes everything, and that’s part of the problem. A list of what can be done could fill numerous editorials. Think of even ordinary measures, such as the availability of cellphone service. It was a problem during last month’s flooding in Nova Scotia. Large coverage gaps exist along major highways and in populated places across the country. Wireless service is essential, given there’s also a need for a better alert system for floods and extreme heat.

One option has to be retreat: Stop building in places where floods or wildfires are likely. But that’s easier said than done. The water and the forest lure people. It’s valuable land. After Calgary was flooded in 2013, the option of buying out homeowners living near the city’s rivers was rejected when the cost was ballparked at more than $2-billion.

The task of adaptation is so massive that it’s easy to point to Ottawa’s strategy and say it’s not enough, and that more is needed. But what’s also clear is that, of the two top federal parties, only the Liberals have addressed the issue. They offered a bunch of ideas during the last election; the Conservatives barely mentioned adaptation.

Adaptation is in part conceding defeat. The climate will batter us for years to come. Existing infrastructure has to be girded. Anything new must be built for climate extremes. And there’s no finish line in sight.