A new report from the N.W.T. government says changes to freeze-up and break-up and unpredictable season shifts are the most likely climate change problems we'll see in the coming decades that carry the biggest consequences for people in the N.W.T.

That's one of the findings of the N.W.T. government's first climate change risks and opportunities assessment, which it released on Tuesday.

It's not a peer-reviewed study, rather, it's an attempt to identify and prioritize the climate change risks that are most likely to compromise the territory's resiliency in the next ten years. The territory is billing the assessment as a tool all levels of government can use as they try to curtail changes caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

Cory Doll, the manager of the territory's climate change unit, said the territory faces a broad range of climate change impacts. The assessment, he said, helps narrow down the areas where time and resources can make a difference.

"It helps us get a shared understanding of what the risks are," he said.

Jay Macdonald, the territory's minister of environment and climate change, said in a news release that he was confident the report would "guide decision-makers in strengthening climate change resilience in the N.W.T. for the years ahead."

The territory says the report was written after two years' worth of discussions with all kinds of people, ranging from youth to public servants, Indigenous leaders and federal agencies and academics.

The Gwich'in Tribal Council (GTC) was a part of those discussions, said Nolan Rainville, a program coordinator with GTC's lands and resources department.

Rainville said there is value in being part of the process and in bringing concerns from the Beaufort Delta to the table. But he doesn't see the document as a tool the same way the territory does.

"To have a toolkit created by the GNWT [Government of the Northwest Territories] is, you know, it's supplemental, but it's not going to be guiding a lot of the work that we're already doing here," he said.

The Gwich'in are already aware of climate change risks in their region, he said.

"People live it every single day, you know, they're in communities, they're out on the Delta, they're hunting on the lands," he said. "We have our own ways of doing the work that we need to do when it comes to climate change."

The 101-page assessment highlights five values that N.W.T. residents have: eco-systems, health and well-being, connection to the land, infrastructure and essential services, and the economy. Those were then used to figure out "what is worth preserving and achieving," according to the report.

The assessment contains 37 climate change risk scenarios – things that might already be happening or may happen in the future – and gives each one a score based on its likelihood and another score based on the severity of its consequences. The likelihood score was reached by talking to subject matter experts, while the consequences score was reached by talking to people who'd be affected by it.

That's where two scenarios come out on top.

Warm temperatures shortening the ice season and changing ice thickness, extent, coverage, duration and location is highly likely in the years 2040 to 2070 and will have very high consequences for people's health and well-being, the assessment found.

Unpredictable shifts in the seasons are also considered highly likely and have very high consequences for Indigenous culture and traditional ways of life.

Doll said the assessment has already proven itself to be a great tool. Though it was released this week, he said the department already had the information contained within it and used that to write up its draft climate action plan.

The territory's intent is to review the assessment in five years, and to update it in 10.