The recent National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) report entitled, "Paying the Price: The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada," suggests the cost of climate change could top the $5-billion mark in Canada in less than eight years, and rise to between $21 billion and $42 billion by the 2050s.

In their report, NRTEE highlights the economic cost of dealing with climate impacts and the cost of adapting to protect against those impacts. Alex MacWilliam, Chair of the National Environmental Law Group and Partner at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP (FMC) spoke to InHouse regarding the importance of adaptation.

The whole idea of adaptation is that it's complementary to the mitigation objective, says Alex. "There are those who would argue that increasing the focus on adaptation is not the way to go, but I don't agree with that," he says. "I don't think we'll be able to effectively mitigate all the man-made impacts to the environment caused by emissions, so how do we adapt going forward?"

Alex believes there is an opportunity for in-house lawyers to lead the charge as adaptation initiatives begin to fall under the domain of an organization's overall risk management strategy. "Over the years, I've noticed that sophisticated companies are involving in-house counsel more and more in policy discussions," he says. "There was a time when in-house counsel got involved strictly on an operational basis, but more and more they're involved at the policy level and quite often involved with discussions their companies are having with industry associations or governments."

For more information, please read Patricia MacInnis' article "Warming to adaptation" featured in Canadian Lawyer InHouse (December 2011)