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Chapter 3 - Collective Climate Adaptation at the Local Level

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2020

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Summary

Planned Adaptation to Climate Change Cities in the United States, and across the world, are beginning to take action to address increasing climate risks by creating adaptation plans. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate adaptation as “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects in order to either lessen or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities” and climate adaptation planning as “the construction of actual strategies and plans in societies in response to climate change” (IPCC 2014, AG5 WGII, 871).

Numerous checklists and frameworks laying out the steps of climate adaptation planning have been put forth. The Fourth National Climate Assessment delineates five stages in the operational process of climate adaptation planning and policymaking: (1) awareness, (2) assessment, (3) planning, (4) implementation, and (5) monitoring and evaluation (USGCRP 2018, ch. 28). Susskind (2010) emphasizes the collaborative, iterative nature of determining when, whether, and how to respond to climate risks. After a municipality identifies problems likely to occur based on local climate forecasts and vulnerability assessments, key stakeholders in the city need to collectively decide what steps to take to reduce vulnerability, enhance resilience, and, finally, continuously monitor and revise adaptation plans in light of new information (Susskind 2010).

Climate adaptation planning is in its early stages in the United States. In 2014, the Third National Climate Assessment found many municipalities in the United States starting to assess vulnerabilities and develop standalone climate adaptation plans, but only a select few had initiated on-the-ground implementation (USGCRP 2014). The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, found the scale and scope of adaptation activities to have increased (USGCRP 2018), but with less than 1 percent of municipalities in the United States undertaking climate adaptation planning overall, climate adaptation is still far from the norm (Hansen et al. 2013; Lyles et al. 2018). In short, while many cities have recognized the need for climate adaptation, a small number are planning for future climate impacts, and among the cities that have started the process of identifying local risks and creating strategies to deal with climate change, few are actually implementing adaptation plans (Shi et al. 2015; Woodruff and Stults 2016; Vogel et al. 2016).

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Chapter
Information
Cities, Climate Change, and Public Health
Building Human Resilience to Climate Change at the Local Level
, pp. 13 - 20
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2020

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