Climate change is on the move — but the political debate is standing still

Before spring began, Canadian political leaders were already debating how to respond to the profound challenge of climate change. Now, they’re doing it while neighbourhood in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick are under water.

In theory, those rising waters ought to bring a new sense of urgency to the debate. But this spring’s floods still seem unlikely to wash away the stark partisan differences that have emerged over climate policy in this country.

The flooding does at least put climate change front and centre. An abstract threat has been made tangible. A problem for the future is suddenly immediate and apparent.

And beyond the expressions of concern for the people directly affected, the conversation has quickly moved to necessary and important questions about adapting to climate change. Is this the new normal? And if it is, what should be done about the homes and infrastructure built in areas that could now be subjected to annual flooding?

It wouldn’t be surprising if news coverage of the flooding leads to a spike in public concern about climate change. Last fall, researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication suggested that higher levels of concern about global warming in some parts of the U.S. were associated with direct experience: those living in states where the effects of climate change are more apparent (coastal storms, wildfires, flooding) tend to take it more seriously.

But other research has found a “weak and quickly dissipating relationship between Americans’ experiences of extreme weather and their concern about climate change.”

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