GEOG 207 Assignment 1
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GEOG 207 Assignment 1: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation at the Community Scale
November 17
th
, 2023
The community that I chose for this assignment is the City of Toronto. The City of Toronto is
home to 2.9 million people, with an annual growth rate of 0.88% (World Population Review, 2023).
Toronto is the most populated city in Canada and has a population density of 4 149.5 people per square
kilometer. The city has a racial composition of 50.2% White, 12.7% East Asian (10.8% Chinese, 1.4%
Korean, 0.5% Japanese), 12.3% South Asian, 8.5% Black, 7% Southeast Asian (5.1% Filipino), 2.8% Latin
American, 2.0% West Asian, 1.1% Arab and 0.7% Aboriginal (0.5% First Nations, 0.2% Metis). The most
common ancestry groups in the City of Toronto is English, Chinese, Canadian, Irish, and Scottish. Toronto
is also home to many ethnic neighborhoods, including Little India, Greektown, Corso Italia, Chinatown,
and Little Jamaica. Foreign-born people account for roughly half of the population of Toronto, making it
one of the most diverse cities in the world.
The City of Toronto reported in 2021 that there were about 733 220 families living within the
city, which housed about 36.7% of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) (Toronto, 2021).
53.9% of these families had children, which was down from what was reported in 2016, and matched
the area’s downward trend. The number of households in 2021 grew about 4.3% since 2016 and stands
at about 1 160 890. The median household income in the City of Toronto was about $84 000, which is a
massive $18 000 increase since 2016. However, $84 000 is the lowest among all of the regions in the
GTHA, with Halton reporting the highest at $121 000 (Figure 2). The median for economic family income
in 2021 in Toronto was $106 000, an increase of $23 000 since 2016. Toronto’s residents relied less on
government transfers than the rest of the nation, as 15.5% of residents earned all their income from the
government, compared to 17.8% of the rest of the country.
The City of Toronto has an ongoing initiative to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions
they produce. Calling it the Net Zero Strategy, the City of Toronto hopes to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions (from 1990) 30% by 2020, 45% by 2025, 65% by 2030, and then have 0 greenhouse gas
emissions by 2040 (City of Toronto, 2023). The first benchmark was surpassed in 2020, with the city
estimating that they had reduced their emissions by 43% since 1990. Since 2020 was an anomaly with a
pandemic, the city expects to see the emissions levels rise back to what they were pre-pandemic. 58% of
Toronto’s emissions came from buildings, mainly greenhouse gases used to heat water and spaces.
Transportation accounted for about 33%, and the remaining 9% being from waste (City of Toronto,
2023).
The City of Toronto is expected to see hotter, wetter and more extreme weather in years to come
as a result of climate change. 2021 was one of the warmest years that the world has ever seen, and
continuously rising temperatures will pose a great risk to the people living in the City of Toronto. Older
adults are more vulnerable to health impacts of climate change because they are less able to
compensate for the effects of certain environmental hazards, such as air pollution (Environmental
Protection Agency, 2018). People aged 65 years or older account for about 15.7% of Toronto’s population
(Wong, 2022) (Figure 1), which means they will have more problems dealing with the elderly on top of
the climate change adaptations. The city should also expect the number of people over the age of 65 to
rise, as 25.9% of the city’s population is aged 45-64 (Point2Homes, 2021). Canada, as a whole, has a
warming rate that is twice the global average, and from 2010-2019, weather events costed the country
around $18 billion (Government of Canada, 2023).
As a result of climate change, over one billion people will be at threat of being displaced due to
environmental change, conflict, and civil unrest. In a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace,
they estimate that the one billion people at risk reside in 31 countries, and these nations are unlikely
going to be able to withstand the impact of ecological events by 2050 (Institute for Economics and
Peace, 2020). Canada’s current immigration policy is quite open and will see a large rise in refugees in
the future as more and more people are displaced (Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2023). Toronto will
see a large influx of these refugees as about 50% of their population comes from a foreign country
(World Population Review, 2023), and there is likely a demographic where these people coming into
Canada can reside.
Toronto will also be at risk of a water crisis in the future due to rising temperatures and a
decrease in the agriculture sector (Crawley, 2023). With temperatures rising, the City of Toronto will have
to use more and more water every year for the green spaces within the city as well as providing drinking
water to their citizens. Conservation Ontario stated that with climate change, Ontario should see an
increased threat to water quality and supply, more frequent severe weather with extreme rainfall and
lowering river flows (Conservation Ontario, 2023) (Figure 3), all which can directly affect the City of
Toronto.
Climate change will also have a large impact on the food production in Ontario that will directly
impact Toronto’s food supply. An article in September of 2023 (Crawley, 2023) outlined a report called
the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment that projected a large number of days with extreme
heat, an increase in floods and more frequent wildfires. The article also stated that the agriculture sector
faces great risk of declining productivity, crop failure and livestock fatalities which would impact
Toronto’s food supply greater, and overall, the majority of the citizens.
One way the City of Toronto could combat the problem of seniors not being able to adjust to the
changing environment is to provide them with everything they need indoors and have them live in a
facility. While this does sound extreme and not very ethical, it does not have to be mandatory, and is
available to those who feel like they need extra support. This facility would have high-quality, filtered air
flowing through it, as one of the main concerns outlined by the United States Environmental Protection
Agency was that older adults are less able to compensate for environmental hazards, such as air
pollution (Environmental Protection Agency, 2018). The facility would also care for the people living in it
and provide them with whatever they needed to stay active and healthy.
The next potential climate change impact on human systems does not rely on the City of
Toronto, but more the Government of Ontario, and the Federal Government of Canada. Both, the
provincial and federal governments need to figure out plans for people coming into Canada who are
looking to start a new life as soon as they possibly can, and not when over a billion people are displaced
due to climate change. CBC posted an article detailing how Ukrainian refugees came to Canada in hopes
to start a new life but had to leave because of the high cost of living in Toronto, and the lack of jobs
available to them (Lytvynenko, 2023). This article exposes the hardships that Canadians are currently
going through, but don’t have anywhere else to go without the governments doing anything to support
them.
Again, the problem in the agriculture sector in Ontario does not rely on the City of Toronto, but
rather the Government of Ontario. However, even though the problem doesn’t have to be dealt with,
the city will still feel the effects greatly. One of the ways the City of Toronto, and the Government of
Ontario could combat the problems in the agriculture sector is to provide more protected growing areas,
like greenhouses. Greenhouses are able to work in the winter and can still grow crops during the colder
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months (Bolt, 2023). It may be logical for these governments to invest in mass scale greenhouses for
year-round use so the crops have full protection from the natural elements that will only get more
extreme in the future (Crawley, 2023).
The final adaptation the City of Toronto can apply to the climate change impact on water quality
is to utilize the rainwater that is falling. Toronto is expected to have a massive increase in rainfall in the
future (Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 2023)(Figure 3), and
the city also expects to see an
increase in flooding (Crawley, 2023). A way that the City could counter both a water quality issue and an
issue with floods is to have more systems that collect rainwater to be filtered into clean, drinking water.
This way, the residents of Toronto will have access to clean drinking water, and at less of a risk of floods,
as more of the water is collected and stored rather than flowing through the streets.
Canada is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world, and the Canadian Arctic is warming
at about three times the rate of the rest of the world (Canada, 2023). Since Canada and it’s arctic are
warming so quickly, Canada will see a rise in water levels. According to Canada’s Bedford Institute of
Oceanography, sea levels are going to rise very quickly in the 21st century (Ducks Unlimited Canada,
2022). On Canada’s coasts, Bedford’s projects that the sea levels will rise from 26 centimeters to one full
meter by 2100. About 7 million people in Canada are living in coastal communities (Government of
Canada, 2023), which is about 18.3% of Canada’s entire population. All 7 million of those people will be
displaced, which is a particularly vulnerable area that the Government of Canada is most likely not ready
for. Not only will the Federal Government have to deal with their own citizens being displaced, but they
will also likely be accepting new residents as more and more people are being affected by climate
change.
The City of Toronto posses the adequate adaptive capacity to respond to the climate change
problems outlined in this assignment. There are already plans in place for seniors living in the City of
Toronto (City of Toronto, 2022), and many regions apart of the GTHA also have plans involving seniors.
The Government of Canada will be dealing with the wide dispersion of people in the country, as well as
the people coming into the country, so the City of Toronto does not have to deal with that directly. The
city is also able to invest in more ways to get food for its residents, as it will be a large problem in the
future. Lastly, the city should also be able to figure out initiatives that provides the people living there
with clean, drinkable water, as that will also be a problem in the future. Overall, Toronto is going to see
many effects of climate change but will be able to adapt.
Figure 1
This figure was taken from
https://betterdwelling.com/toronto-is-turning-into-a-retirement-village-as-
the-senior-population-explodes-higher/
This figure was used to depict how Toronto will have a
difficult time accommodating the senior population
when climate change starts to affect the quality of the
air, as well as the temperature.
Figure 2
Taken from the 2021 Census Backgrounder Families,
Household, Marital Status, Income of the City of
Toronto
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2022/07/9877-City-Planning-2021-
Census-Backgrounder-Families-Hhlds-Marital-Status-
Income.pdf
This figure was used to depict the average income of a Toronto household in 2021 and was used in the
demographic section.
Figure 3
Taken from the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
https://trca.ca/climate-change-impacts-
gta/#:~:text=Precipitation%20is%20expected%20to%20increase,under%20the%20high%20emissions
%20scenario
This figure was used to support my claim that Toronto should utilize the rainfall, as it has only been
increasing and will only increase in the future. It will also help the City of Toronto deal with the eventual
problem of flooding.
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Citations
Bolt, C. (2023, November 16).
How to grow plants successfully in a winter greenhouse
.
GreenCitizen.
https://greencitizen.com/blog/winter-greenhouse/
Canada, N. R. (2023, May 17).
Climate change adaptation in Canada
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Toronto seniors strategy
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https://www.toronto.ca/city-
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strategies/toronto-seniors-strategy/
City of Toronto. (2023a, February 16).
About the Climate Crisis
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Ducks Unlimited Canada. (2022, February 8).
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