Building a Climate-Resilient City

The document argues that proactive investment in climate resilience reduces long-term financial risks and liability costs for municipalities. It advocates for 'multiple-bottom-line' accounting and the valuation of ecosystem services (eco-asset accounting) to prioritize cost-effective natural infrastructure over expensive engineered solutions. The briefing details various financing mechanisms to enhance urban robustness, redundancy, and resourcefulness, including green bonds, public-private partnerships, user fees, and the use of Alberta's carbon levy. It concludes with strategic recommendations to embed resilience into zoning, permitting, and planning processes.

• Climate change presents significant financial risks to municipalities through infrastructure damage, productivity losses, and adverse health effects. Proactive investment in resilience can lower liability costs and improve credit ratings and investor confidence.
• The document proposes a 'multiple-bottom-line' accounting approach, expanding on traditional triple-bottom-line methods, to specifically integrate climate change adaptation into municipal planning and budgeting.
• Eco-asset accounting allows cities to monetize the value of ecosystem services, enabling them to use natural features like wetlands and urban forests as cost-effective alternatives to engineered infrastructure. In Gibsons, B.C., this approach helped the town manage risks and avoid unsustainable maintenance costs that would have exceeded one third of its annual infrastructure budget.
• Financial robustness for Alberta cities can be supported by the provincial carbon levy, which the government estimates will provide CAD 2.2 billion for green infrastructure, including emissions reduction and adaptation initiatives.
• Municipalities can utilize diverse funding instruments to create financial redundancy, including green bonds, which have seen high demand in Ontario (where CAD 1.2 billion was raised for transit), and public-private partnerships (PPPs) for technical innovations like smart grids.
• To encourage community resourcefulness, cities can use regulatory and financial incentives, such as property subclassing under Alberta’s Modernized Municipal Government Act, to reward land-use practices that improve ecosystem services.

APA

McCullough, D. S. (2017). Building a Climate-Resilient City. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/pcc-brief-climate-resilient-city-economics-finance.pdf

Chicago

McCullough, Dr. Steve. Building a Climate-Resilient City. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/pcc-brief-climate-resilient-city-economics-finance.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=McCullough |first1=Dr. Steve |title=Building a Climate-Resilient City |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/pcc-brief-climate-resilient-city-economics-finance.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{mccullough2017building, author = {McCullough, Dr. Steve}, title = {{Building a Climate-Resilient City}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/pcc-brief-climate-resilient-city-economics-finance.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }