Health Canada Releases New Report On Climate Change

Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 01 Aug 2008 - 14:00 PDT

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The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Health, today announced the release of Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity.

"Our government takes the issue of climate change very seriously," said Minister Clement. "We are already taking real action to combat climate change with our Turning the Corner Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Since coming into office, this Government has invested over $9 billion to protect and preserve Canada's environment. This includes $85.9 million for climate change adaptation programs, such as pilot projects to develop heat alert and response systems, and infectious disease response systems, and to develop health adaptation programs with Northerners.

These adaptation measures complement the Government's Turning the Corner Action Plan, an aggressive plan to combat climate change and reduce air pollution. This plan sets an ambitious goal of reducing Canada's greenhouse gases from 2006 levels in absolute terms by 20 percent by 2020, and an additional 60-70 percent by 2050.

To reach this goal, the Government of Canada announced tough, mandatory regulations for big industry to reduce their emissions last March. These regulations will be the most important driver of change for moving Canada to a low emission economy.

Health Canada