CLIMATE PROOF – my presentation at the Resilient City Conference in Bonn, May 29, 2010

Climate adaptation, as a specific course of action, is relatively new, although at a more fundamental level society has always adapted to changes in climate. The Resilient City Conference in Bonn on May 28-30, 2010 addressed the need for cities to find new ways to adapt to a changing climate. The conference was organized by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. 470 scientists, professionals and policy makers from around the world attended it. I contributed a paper to the conference and presented its findings on Saturday. In it, I compared the way in which City Climate Plans in the US, Europe and Asia have incorporated climate adaptation strategies.

The paper is based on an analysis that I did with Anisha Mittal and Ashley Spatafore in our New York Urban Progress Design office. We found that most regions and cities have a reasonable understanding of the threat that the changing climate poses, but that their understanding of the vulnerability of their city or region is less than complete. Especially the economic and social components of vulnerability –how changes in the climate affect specific population groups or specific economic sectors- is not yet adequately analyzed.

Our study suggests that much progress is being made in addressing the consequences of climate change. Most cities now recognize the need to take action beyond reducing carbon emissions, and adapt to the changing climate. All ten cities have recent plans and studies to address the issue at hand, and the knowledge on risks and adaptation strategies is increasing fast. But the focus is still rather infrastructural, and we concluded that the cities would need to build-up their social and economic analysis. In terms of adaptation strategies, the cities are just starting to address their climate risks, also mainly from the infrastructural field.

The presentation concludes that the need for climate proofing will become one of the drivers of citywide planning and strategizing. Our impression is that city climate action plans are a suitable platform for improving city resilience, but that more broad scope approaches are needed to address the key climate risks. We conclude that knowledge development is crucial, including vulnerability analysis, mapping, strategic options for adaptation, and success stories on adaptation. We suggest several ways through which City Climate Action Plans can be enhanced to deliver climate proofing, including the need to enhance risk mapping and a plea for more metropolitan level approaches. High on the metropolitan agenda would be the need to ‘climate-proof’ suburbia. This is the next big challenge, especially for a suburban nation like the US.