Manitoba announces funding for new Prairie Climate Centre

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger announced on Friday that the province will invest $400,000 over the next two years in a new Prairie Climate Centre at the University of Winnipeg (UWinnipeg), making it the first province to sign a “right to healthy environment declaration” championed by the David Suzuki Foundation.

The province will invest $200,000 in 2015-16 and $200,000 in 2016-17 in support of the centre, a partnership between the UWinnipeg and the International Institute for Sustainable Development that will be hosted by UWinnipeg’s Richardson College for the Environment. The centre’s goal is to provide municipal governments, the private sector, civil society organizations and other practitioners with practical information and tools to engage in effective climate-change adaptation planning.

“Manitobans and their families have seen the effects of climate change first-hand, and the financial and emotional impacts severe weather events can have on our communities,” Selinger said in a statement.

Dr. Annette Trimbee, president and vice chancellor at the University of Winnipeg, agreed, saying that “floods, storms, fires, droughts – all can have catastrophic impacts on communities and people. By collaborating and pooling our research and expertise and making that easily available to others, the new Prairie Climate Centre is meeting a real-world need.”

One of the first of many projects for the centre is to support a documentary film by Dr. Ian Mauro on Manitoba’s boreal forest and the vital role it plays in carbon capture and implications of climate change, Selinger noted in the statement.