A new report from the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI) is calling for a major increase in proactive climate adaptation spending on public infrastructure, warning that governments will otherwise face rapidly escalating repair and replacement costs as severe weather intensifies.
The independent study, “Prepare or Repair: How Climate‑proofing Public Infrastructure Pays Off,” was commissioned in part by the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). It provides a national assessment of how climate change will affect the cost of maintaining, renewing and repairing public infrastructure, and how early action can materially reduce those costs.
CCI’s modeling suggests that investing about $4 billion a year in proactive adaptation measures would prevent most of the infrastructure damage caused by extreme heat and heavier rainfall. The report estimated taxpayers could save between $5 billion and $10 billion annually in infrastructure costs if effective adaptation measures are implemented.
CCI warned that delaying or failing to adapt public infrastructure to Canada’s changing climate will leave taxpayers with a steep and growing bill. By contrast, targeted resilience investments can sharply reduce the risk of infrastructure failure and lower long‑term lifecycle costs.
The report recommended that federal, provincial and territorial governments expand funding for infrastructure adaptation and modernize financial tools available to municipalities and other infrastructure owners, including Indigenous governments, so they can finance resilience upgrades.
It urged governments to plan, operate, maintain and renew public infrastructure in ways that ensure it continues to function safely and reliably under future climate conditions, strengthen climate hazard data and mapping nationwide to support consistent, risk‑informed decisions, and accelerate updates to infrastructure codes and standards so new and renewed assets are built to withstand changing climate risks.
CCI also said all public infrastructure spending should explicitly account for climate risk and help reduce long‑term vulnerability, and that programs should be tailored to support the most vulnerable communities and the most critical infrastructure.
IBC said it strongly supports the report and its focus on resilience as a way to help communities better withstand climate risks. The bureau argued that investments in infrastructure should prioritize resilience to ensure communities can better withstand climate events and that Canada can position itself as a global leader in disaster resilience.
The call for adaptation funding comes against the backdrop of rapidly rising insured losses from severe weather. Between 2006 and 2015, Canada’s annual insured losses from catastrophic weather events and wildfires totaled $14 billion (inflation‑adjusted). Between 2016 and 2025, that figure jumped to $37 billion, nearly three times the losses of the previous decade. The average number of claims has almost doubled over the same period.
IBC noted that this increase in insured losses is putting significant pressure on consumers, who are facing growing challenges around the affordability and availability of property insurance. Municipalities are also seeing higher insurance costs linked to severe weather damage. That trend has driven the property and casualty industry’s long‑standing advocacy for greater investment in hardening public infrastructure, both to keep communities safe and to help ensure home and commercial insurance remain widely available and affordable.
In 2025, IBC published six recommendations on how to build climate‑resilient homes and safer communities, followed by its Three‑Point Resilience Plan, a strategy aimed at protecting vulnerable communities, supporting the sustainability of the home insurance market and reducing the financial and emotional toll of natural disasters.
As part of that agenda, IBC continues to call for sustained federal investment in programs such as the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, which supports projects that improve community‑level resilience. The bureau points to analyses indicating that every dollar invested in climate adaptation can return as much as $13 to $15 in economy‑wide benefits.
With insured catastrophe losses climbing and CCI warning that infrastructure owners face even larger unfunded liabilities without adaptation, the report adds urgency to insurers’ message that without major, forward‑looking infrastructure investment, both taxpayers and policyholders are likely to face significantly higher costs in the years ahead.
