The Climate Brief keeps you up-to-date on how climate change is shaping Canada’s communities, our economy, and our future. Each episode unpacks new research from the Canadian Climate Institute—Canada’s most trusted source of climate change data, insight and solutions.

Episode 1: How to build more housing in a changing climate

How do we build the new homes we need across Canada, while also keeping people safe from floods and wildfires? Researchers answer that question in the Canadian Climate Institute’s newest report Close to Home: How to build more housing in a changing climate. What’s more, researchers determined that building much-needed homes on safer ground could save billions of dollars.

Canadian communities are facing an affordable housing crisis, with millions of new homes needing to be built before the end of this decade. At the same time, this new research found that hundreds of thousands of these new homes could be built in areas at a high risk of flood or wildfire—potentially adding up to $3 billion each year in damages to new housing alone. 

Fortunately, the analysis found good news: it is possible to build the homes we need while keeping Canadians safe. To do this, researchers identified five things Canadian governments can do to ensure new homes are built out of harm’s way. 

Get up to speed on this important research in a 10-minute Q&A with host Julia Kilpatrick and  Ryan Ness, Director of Climate Adaptation Research and lead author of the Institute’s report.