Whitehorse Climate Change Adaptation Plan - Yukon College

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Community Adaptation Project
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ABOUT THE WHITEHORSE COMMUNITY ADAPTATION PLAN
Climate has been changing in Whitehorse. It is clear from weather data going back to the
1940s that temperature has been warming, especially in winters. Spring break-up has been
arriving earlier, freeze-up has been occurring later, and the number of frost free days have been
increasing.
The Whitehorse Community Adaptation Project, or WhiteCAP, funded by the Northern Strategy
Trust, begins the process of preparing Whitehorse for climate change. WhiteCAP consists of two
distinct phases: planning and implementation.
The WhiteCAP plan assesses how climate change may positively or negatively affect the
community over the next forty years, to 2050. The first half of the planning process focuses
on exploring multiple scenarios of how the community may change by 2050. Details on the
scenarios are presented in a companion document for this plan titled: Future Histories of
Whitehorse: Scenarios of Change (Hennessey and Streicker, 2010). The second half of the
planning process assesses the risks of climate change impacts and then the priorities of climate
change adaptations. Parts of this plan have been implemented in the second year of the
WhiteCAP project.
The first step in the WhiteCAP planning process is to project what changes are coming.
We developed four scenarios describing how climate change may affect the community of
Whitehorse. These futures take into consideration a range of climate change scenarios and also
a range in city growth (both economic and population). Climate change is uncertain, but by
bracketing the possibilities we are more likely to capture the actual future of Whitehorse.
The range of scenarios gives breadth to this complex problem. Depth is created by providing
detail to the scenarios. This allows the community to evaluate its own vulnerability. Based on the
scenarios, the community identified nearly 250 impacts and proposed as many adaptations to
address climate change.
Community risk was assessed on a sector-by-sector basis and then on an impact-by-impact
basis. Risk was determined based on the severity of anticipated impacts (or the strength
of the opportunity), the likelihood of the impact occurring, and the current capacity of the
community to adapt to that impact. The five priority sectors for Whitehorse are: natural hazards,
infrastructure, environment, food security and energy security.
WhiteCAP is a planning process whereby the broader community was engaged through a
series of open houses, focus groups and a central workshop to consider how climate change
may exacerbate vulnerability in the Whitehorse region. Community members were invited to
contribute to all phases of WhiteCAP, including planning, editing, and implementation. In all,
four open houses and three workshops were held in the community over the two years of the
adaptation project, from June 2009 to June 2011.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND WHITEHORSE
Climate change projections illustrate that Whitehorse will experience warming temperatures and
shifting precipitation. Even modest changes in temperature and precipitation will have complex
side effects that will intensify vulnerabilities or enhance opportunities for the community.
Annual and seasonal temperatures for Whitehorse have been projected for 2030 and 2050.
Warming will differ seasonally; winter is projected to warm the fastest – increasing 3°C to 5°C