University Course Module
Planning for Climate Change
Lecture 2
Principles of Climate Policy
LECTURE 2 PRINCIPLES OF CLIMATE POLICY
Table of Contents
I.
Overview, learning objectives and notes to instructor ............................................................. 4
II.
Suggested reading assignments .............................................................................................. 5
III. Lecture Notes ......................................................................................................................... 6
A.
Drivers and constraints of climate policy .................................................................... 6
1.
2.
3.
B.
Mitigation policy and planning ................................................................................. 21
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
C.
Challenge for policy makers ...................................................................................... 21
Role of planning in mitigation policy......................................................................... 22
Mitigation measures ................................................................................................. 24
Inventories of urban GHG emissions......................................................................... 27
Governance issues..................................................................................................... 27
The adaptation turn ................................................................................................. 29
1.
2.
3.
D.
Emerging knowledge about climate change ............................................................... 8
Ideologies and values ................................................................................................ 16
The economics of climate change ............................................................................. 18
The need for adaptation ........................................................................................... 29
Key concepts in adaptation theory ........................................................................... 29
Typology of adaptation ............................................................................................. 34
Bridging the mitigation / adaptation divide .............................................................. 37
IV. Exercises and instructional activities ..................................................................................... 42
1.
2.
V.
Exercise 1 (Responding to skeptics and deniers: role play) ...................................... 42
Exercise 2 (Pros/cons of LUP as a mitigation policy tool) ......................................... 42
Suggestions for in-depth exploration..................................................................................... 43
1.
In Depth Exploration Topic 1 (Integrating mitigation and adaptation)..................... 43
VI. REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 44
VII. END NOTES........................................................................................................................... 48
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List of figures and tables
Figure 1 Why planners do not apply climate knowledge ....................................................................... .9
Figure 2 Depiction of boundary structures............................................................................................. 10
Figure 3 Potential synergies between science and community planning processes. ............................ 12
Figure 4 Industrial emissions key focus of national mitigation policy. ................................................... 22
Figure 5 Development of alternative energy sources key elements of mitigation agenda. .................. 23
Figure 6 Total emissions of fossil fuel carbon dioxide in the US. ........................................................... 24
Figure 7 Toronto area GHG emissions. ................................................................................................... 25
Figure 8 World greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 ................................................................................ 28
Figure 9 Linkages between adaptation and mitigation .......................................................................... 40
Table 1 Drivers and constraints of climate policy. .................................................................................. 7
Table 2 Common land use planning instruments for climate change mitigation. ................................ 26
Table 3 Types of adaptation according to Bizikova, Neale et al. (2008). .............................................. 34
Table 4 Types of adaptation according to Smit, Burton et al. (2000). .................................................. 35
Table 5 Challenges, pitfalls and unintended consequences of adaptation. .......................................... 36
Table 6 Definition, difference and similartiies between mitigation and adaptation ........................... 38
Table 7 Matrix of measures integrating mitigation and adaptation .................................................... 39
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Lecture 2 Principles of climate policy
I.
Overview, learning objectives and notes to instructor
Having looked in the first lecture at climate change primarily as physical phenomena and a topic of
scientific research, this Lecture explores climate change as a subject of policy making. Principal questions to
be considered include:
o
o
o
o
o
What are the norms and measures typically included in mitigation and adaptation
policies and plans? What is driving their adoption?
Why are some stakeholders and the public reluctant to support stronger action? Why
are some jurisdictions becoming leaders in this field while others lag?
How are cultural norms, existing laws, governance structures and other socio-economic
factors impacting the development of climate policy?
How does planning fit within emerging climate policies? Is planning merely a delivery
mechanism for climate policy? Can it be more? How?
As national and provincial policies are enacted (e.g., a cap and trade regime or a ‘green
energy’ feed-in-tariff), what challenges/opportunities arise for planners?
Section A of the lecture examines the socio-economic conditions that drive and constrain climate policy.
Concepts are drawn from many fields in the social sciences, including science and technology studies,
political science, sociology, international relations and economics. As this is a very broad topic, the section
begins with an outline of some of the major policy drivers. It then delves in some depth on just a few of
them (i.e. knowledge-based considerations, differences in ideology and values and economics concepts).
The aim is to give students a general appreciation for the complexity and controversy in climate change
debates and the role of planners and planning in this challenging policy environment.
Sections B and C of the Lecture describe the substantive norms and key principles of climate change policy.
The focus of Section B is mitigation. Adaptation concepts are considered in Section C.
The Lecture concludes with Section D, which examines the potential for synergy and conflict between
mitigation and adaptation objectives, placing both within the context of sustainable development.
Note that the focus of this Lecture is policy and the politics, economics and other discourses shaping it.
Issues related to planning processes and the more practical concerns of climate planning (e.g., methods and
tools for assessing impacts and vulnerabilities, steps in the development of a mitigation or adaptation plan,
planning outcomes and legal instruments for implementation) are covered in Lecture 3.
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II.
Suggested reading assignments
On drivers and barriers to climate change policy making:
Hulme, M (2009) Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and
opportunity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
On land use planning as a mitigation (GHG reduction) strategy:
Nolon, JR (2008) Shifting ground to address climate change: the land use law solution.
Government, Law and Policy Journal 10(Summer 2008): 23.
On adaptation theory, concepts and practices:
Adger et al. (2007) IPCC Working Group II, Fourth Assessment Report, especially Chapters 17-20.
Selections from Schipper, L and I Burton (2009) The Earthscan reader on adaptation to climate
change. Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
On synergy and conflict between mitigation and adaptation
Swart, R & F Raes (2007) Making integration of adaptation and mitigation work: mainstreaming
into sustainable development policies. Climate Policy 7: 288-303.
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III.
Lecture Notes
A.
Drivers and constraints of climate policy
Viewed in a simplistic, technocratic way, the making of climate policy requires planners (under the direction
of elected officials) to procure the latest climate projections from scientists, ask engineers and other
experts to devise appropriate responses to the threat and then implement those fixes using whatever
planning tools are best suited to the task. Reticence on the part of the public and stakeholders would be
countered by providing more and better scientific information showing the expected climate change and
associated risks (this is the so-called ‘deficit-model’ of science-for-policy).
The reality for Canadian planners is, of course, much more complicated. While science and technology do
play an important role in shaping climate policies, the uptake of climate information in planning and the
success of policy proposals are deeply influenced by a host of socio-economic and political factors. More
and better science and technology, alone, will not lead to optimal climate policies.
Climate change policy makers face many challenges. They must deal with considerable and irreducible
uncertainties in climate projections and impact assessments. Multiple and potentially conflicting sources of
information (both ‘expert’-based AND local, traditional knowledge) must be evaluated and integrated into
policy proposals and plans. Public opinion regarding the cause of the crisis and how to solve it is often split
along ideological and other lines. Stakeholders may doubt the trustworthiness of scientific data or
technological solutions. The public may perceive environmental risks very differently or have divergent
views on the proper role of government, public action and private, autonomous adaptation.
The unequal distribution of impacts, responsibilities and costs exacerbate the potential for dispute
considerably. Roberts and Parks (2007), referring to the ‘triple inequalities of responsibility, vulnerability,
and assumption of costs’, observe that:
[p]art of the reason cooperation on climate change is so difficult to achieve is intrinsic to the problem
itself: the number of parties needed to resolve the problem, the complexity of the problem, the time
sensitivity of the solution, the quantity and quality of information, the high levels of uncertainty
surrounding the issue, the stability and intensity of actor preferences, the ‘observability’ of climaterelated behaviour, and the asymmetry of externalities.”
In this Section, some of the major drivers and constraints of climate policy are identified. This is done in an
outline format beginning in the following page (Table 1). The drivers/constraints are classified into five
main groupings, as follows:
Applying climate knowledge
Public opinion and perceptions of risk
Ideologies and values
Ethics and fairness
Economic considerations.
After the outline, the challenges and issues related to ‘Application of climate knowledge’, ‘Ideologies and
values’, and ‘Economic considerations’ are explored in more detail.
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Table 1 Drivers and constraints of climate policy, with notes and select references.
Emerging knowledge about climate change
Increasing understanding of climate system, threats
Extent of public acceptance of science as authoritative
Integration of expert and lay knowledge
Considerable and irreducible uncertainties
Need to ‘localize’ global and regional projections
Aligning research and policy agendas
Collaboration across sectors and disciplines
Public opinion and perception of risk
Response to media accounts of scientific findings
Response to international negotiations
Occurrence of weather/storm events
Varied perceptions of risk/vulnerabilities
Lay risk analysis subjective (differs from statistical analysis)
Ideology and values
Attachment to economic, social and natural assets
Balance of economic, social and environmental goods
Conception of crisis (technology, governance, ethics)
Policy goals (R&D, econ. restructuring, social transformation)
Best means (regulation, incentives, autonomous adaptation)
Ethical norms and notions of justice
Inequality of impacts, vulnerability, responsibility and costs
Eco-centric versus anthropocentric perspectives
Harms/values depend on geo. scale of analysis (local/global)
Considering future generations
Economic considerations
Prospect of future benefit / fear of future loss
Cost / benefit analysis of policies and plans
Affordability of proposed solutions
Discounting of future benefits
Discussed in text below.
‘Pulsed’ nature of adaptation responding to
inconsistent, ‘crisis’ oriented media accounts.
On public risk perception and differences to
‘expert’ assessments , see Fischhoff et al. (1979)
Discussed in text below.
On North/South climate justice, see Roberts &
Parks (2007).
On changing values at various geo scales of
analysis, see Lindseth (2006).
Discussed in text below.
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1.
Emerging knowledge about climate change
There is a large and important literature on the construction of knowledge, its application in policy and plan
making and the difficulties decision makers often encounter when using science to support policy proposals
(see box below).
The analysis of this topic may commence with a brief review of contemporary theories of knowledge.
Current knowledge theories generally reject the modernist vision of science as an objective, apolitical,
superior source of information tasked with ‘telling truth to power’. Instead, ‘constructivism’ posits that all
knowledge is socially constructed. This means that facts are investigated and interpreted, and information
is translated, standardized, and ultimately validated as action-relevant through complex interactions of
multiple social networks. Scientists are but one set of actors involved. As such, the generation and
application of knowledge is highly influenced by politics and economics, language and discourse, cultural
norms, institutions, legal regimes, among other factors.
Data from surveys of planners and resource managers support the notion that the uptake of climate
information is generally difficult and sensitive to various economic, institutional and socio-political
conditions as well as practical problems. Figure 1 in the next page summarizes the results of a survey of
Scandinavian planners on this question.
Select works on using science in policy making

Brugnach, M, K Florian & W de Lange (2007). "Uncertainty Matters: Computer Models at the Science–
Policy Interface." Water Resources Management 21(7): 1075-90.

Funtowicz, SO & JR Ravetz (1993). “Science for a post-normal age.” Futures 25: 739-5.

Jasanoff, S & B Wynne (1998). “Science and decision making” in Human choices and climate change,
Rayner, R & EL Malone (eds.). Columbus, OH: Battelle Press.

Mitchell, R, W Clark, D Cash & N Dickson (eds) (2006). Global environmental assessments: information
and influence. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Pettenger, ME (2007). The social construction of climate change: power, knowledge, norms and
discourses. Burlington (VT): Ashgate.

Saloranta, TM (2001) “Post normal science and the global climate change issue.” Climatic Change 50(4):
395-404.

White, DD, EA Corley & MS White (2008). “Water managers’ perceptions of the science-policy interface in
Phoenix AZ: implications for emerging boundary organizations.” Soc. & Nat. Res. 21(3): 230-243.

Pielke, RA (2007). The honest broker: making sense of science in policy and politics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
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Figure 1 Reasons why Scandinavian planners do not apply climate knowledge and
recommendations for improvement. Source: (Eliasson 2000).
In the case of climate change, part of the knowledge challenge stems from the nature and quality of the
information itself. As explained in Lecture 1, scientists and other ‘experts’ play leading roles in the
generation of climate information (including projections, impact assessments and other research products
deemed essential for mitigation and adaptation planning). Their prominence can give rise to challenges to
data legitimacy. Further, in order to be relevant to planning, those research products must often be
localised and must be integrated with other forms of local knowledge.
To complicate matters, embedded in scientific research products is significant and irreducible uncertainty.
This is due in part to the complexity of the natural and social systems involved and lack of certainty about
future emissions and pertinent social conditions (e.g., demography, economy, technology).
In the sections that follow, the problem of information relevance and legitimacy and concerns about
managing deep uncertainty are explored in more detail.
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a)
Relevance and legitimacy of scientific information
Planners and policy makers must consider whether the climate research products used to support
proposed plans are: (1) accurate (‘valid’ in scientific parlance), (2) relevant to planning and decision-making
and (3) legitimate in the eyes of the stakeholders and elected officials.
With regard to relevance, it is clear that collaboration between scientists and planners, and, more
importantly, the institutions within which they function, is essential. There are many examples of formal
and information associations of planners and climate scientists working on climate change projects in
Canada (involving all levels of government and within academia). See Appendix B. There is also much
scholarship that explores the science/policy boundary and recommends practical solutions to promote the
generation of policy-relevant data and its application to decision making (i.e., integrated assessments, joint
fact finding, social learning) (Cohen 1997; Rotmans 1998; Jacobs 2003; Cohen, Neilsen et al. 2006; Karl,
Susskind et al. 2007).
Note that the aim is not just to understand and strengthen the science/planner relationship but also the
links between science and participatory policy making more generally (i.e., stakeholder and citizenship
involvement).
One interesting concept in the literature is that of ‘boundary structures’, institutions in which both
scientists and consumers of scientific information have a stake and formal role and where they can work
together to establish research goals, apply scientific knowledge in joint projects and negotiate any
disagreements that may arise from differences in perspective and terminology (Lienin, Kasemir et al. 2004).
The use of such formal linkages could help to align the research agenda to fit planners’ needs.
Figure 2 Depiction of boundary structure astride 'pure' and applied science,
bridging the science/policy divide in pat through pilot projects, reports
and other jointly-produced boundary objects.
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Any such a tightening of the connection between scientific research and planning does raise concerns and
questions that may be posed to the students here:
1. How can planners assist in promoting research independence?
2. What do multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity mean in practice?
3. When, how and to what purpose should scientists and stakeholders work together?
Another serious challenge for planners relates to the legitimacy of using scientific data and other ‘expert’
knowledge in policy making. Climate change is a complex and controversial topic. Planners must be
prepared to respond to many different kinds of objections (from the public, stakeholders or elected
officials) to the use of climate change projections and data.
In this regard, planners must keep in mind the differences between the scientific approach to knowledge
generation (as idealized) and the way the public views knowledge. Scientists formulate a hypothesis and
design experiments to test it while striving to eliminate subjectivity and bias from their examinations. A
theory is formulated based on the results of experiments. Yet those results remain contested (Garnaut
2008), meaning there will often be dissenting opinions of other ‘experts.’ The results are also qualified,
meaning they rely on assumptions that may not apply in many cases. New experiments may be conducted
and the underlying theories revised.
In short, no scientific finding is absolutely and unvaryingly true. Even long-standing and mainstream views
can be described as ‘theory.’ Scientists generally are comfortable with such uncertainty and disagreement
as an inherent part of their work.
Members of the public and elected officials, by contrast, may interpret scientific methods and information
quite differently:

Insisting on clear predictions rather than uncertain projections;

Believing disagreement between scientists to mean no facts exists to support action;

Overestimating the likelihood of some risks (those easily imagined or dreaded), while
underestimating others.
Some also may question the value or legitimacy of the scientific method itself, favouring other approaches
to learning: revelation, assertions by an authority, personal observation, etc.
As a result, when presented with a proposed adaptation plan or project, there may be very heated
disagreement regarding the facts about climate change. Advocates of strong action may exaggerate the
likelihood of certain risks. Opponents may demand certainty before any costly action is taken. Some may
deny the existence of the problem altogether or question the validity of scenarios and projections decades
into the future. Elected officials may see such disagreement as a reason for inaction or delay. And public
discussions may become more contentious as the seriousness and size of the climate change problem, and
the inequality of its impacts, become more evident.
Planners must develop skills and techniques for engaging the public debate. Foremost, planners must show
respect for differences of opinion about climate change. The community at large should be encouraged to
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participate in finding the appropriate solutions, even if that means discarding or altering scientific findings.
A top-down, technocratic approach is unlikely to succeed in raising adaptive capacity and resilience, which
is the ultimate goal.
Showing respect for differences of opinion may require distinguishing amongst the many sources of
disagreement about climate change. For instance, some ‘deniers’ (a word that may be deemed a pejorative
by some) may have based their belief on religious scriptures or political ideology. Skeptics may disagree
with the import of certain observations or the accuracy of assumptions yet agree with many of the
underlying scientific concepts. Exercise 1 on page 42 is a role playing exercise where students practice
responding to challenges to the validity of climate data.
The reticence of the public may not be fixable with more data and rather require a process of socialization
of the information, beyond mere rationality. (Bulkeley 2000) cautions that attempts to involve the public in
decision-making about the global environment that focus solely on the provision of ‘expert’ information in
order to effect behavioral change are likely to meet with little success.
There may be unexplored opportunities for even closer collaboration between planners and other social
scientists and climatologists. Community involvement also appears to be possible and very useful with
regard to many avenues of scientific research on climate. Oke (1984) laid out the modes of scientific
investigation of the climate. Figure 3 below may help students think about the potential synergy between
community planning processes and the modes of investigation used by climate science. Planners could play
an important role in such scientists/community collaborations.
?
Figure 3 Potential synergies (?) between scientific investigation and community planning
processes.
Another major challenge for planners is the need to obtain climate knowledge from the community. This is
especially important in traditional, First Nations and Northern communities with rich histories that may not
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be written. Special methods may be required to access and incorporate those alternative voices in planning
processes.
Rydin (2007) looks at the question of whether planners can (or should) distinguish amongst claims to
knowledge about climate. Should scientific studies be given preference over traditional and local sources of
knowledge? How would doing so square with modern orthodoxy of deliberative planning and multiple
legitimate sources of knowledge?
Municipal planners are also faced with the challenge of how to disseminate climate information most
effectively across professional and bureaucratic boundaries. As will be seen in Lecture 3, mainstreaming
climate change requires that consideration be given to adaptation and mitigation in day to day decision
making. This necessitates having a broad and deep communication network to dispatch the most relevant
and up to date information. At the same time, climate change may need a strong champion and some
consolidation of responsibilities within a municipality. Some cities have elected to establish climate change
knowledge centers as a stand-alone function to support line departments while others may task one
department (public work or environment) most closely aligned with the climate policy agenda to lead in the
generation and dissemination of information.
b)
Managing uncertainties
Planning scholars have distinguished two types of uncertainty: one form of uncertainty is associated with
the planning problem under study (referred to as environmental uncertainty), the other arises within the
planning process itself (or process uncertainty). Note that although the two are distinct, they are related.
Abbott (2005) identifies five dimensions of uncertainty: causal (pertaining to the behavior of the system
under analysis), external (from systems outside the stakeholders’ zone of influence), chance (one-off
events), organizational or human (concerning the acts or intention of others) and value (disagreement
about goals or priorities). The key point for planners is that each type of uncertainty affects stakeholders
and the planning process differently and each requires different responsive strategies. Christensen (1985)
for example called for ‘programming’ or ‘research’ type planning approaches depending on the extent of
uncertainty about planning means and goals. For other analyses of planning under deep uncertainty, see
Friend & Hickling (1987) and Mack (1971).
The need to manage such uncertainties has led to calls for new planning approaches and decision making
frameworks. Traditionally, planners utilize a ‘predict and plan’, or forecast-based approach. That means
that an analysis of past and present conditions and some prediction of the future form the bases for
devising proposed interventions. Those proposals are targeted to the problem as identified and are
consistent with the stated goals. Under conditions of deep uncertainties about both future conditions AND
policy goals, such an approach may be ineffective.
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Various alternative planning approaches are now emerging. They can be traced to three distinct (but similar
and converging) concepts:



resiliency as conceived by adaptation scientists
adaptive management developed by urban ecologists and resource managers, and
the literature on scenario-based planning.
Ultimately, the aim of all three ideas is in part to learn to accept and live with irreducible uncertainty and
complexity and to make public decisions accordingly.
In the case of scenario-based planning, the recommended method generally begins with the construction
of multiple possible futures. These plausible, coherent and internally consistent story lines reflect a range of
assumptions about various drivers of socio-economic development and environmental degradation (e.g.,
cultural attitudes, extent of economic integration and growth, centralization of environmental governance).
The inability to forecast or predict a single future is thus acknowledged.
Similar concepts may be gleaned from the work of adaptation scientists. Thus, one approach to adaptation
planning focuses on concrete, planned interventions responding to specific threats. The favoured approach
in conditions of uncertainty, however, urges soft adaptation. This would entail fostering the general
capacity of a community with measures that strengthen social networks, education and awareness about
multiple risks, and contingency planning. Such approaches would be effective across a larger range of
possible futures. For more on resilience and scenario planning approaches, including case studies, see
Wardekker et al. (2009) and Wilson (2009).
The concept of adaptive management, which encompasses many similar precepts, has important
ramifications in the realm of governance and regime building as well.
Students should also be aware of scientific tools to assess uncertainty in climate projections. Guidance for
such assessments may be found in the following IPCC reports:


Good Practice Guideline on Assessment and Combination of Projections Data (url:
http://tinyurl.com/35bec3m (2010);
Guidance Notes for Lead Authors on Addressing Uncertainties (url: http://tinyurl.com/2cn89e2
(2004).
Planners can pass on the findings (i.e., the level of confidence regarding a specific scientific finding) to
elected officials and the public. Care should be taken not to ignore more extreme projections that may
have lower, yet very real, risks. The challenge here is mainly one of clear and accurate communication from
scientists to planners and from planners to the public and deciding officials.
Deep uncertainty also may require alternative decision making criteria. Planners commonly recommend
particular measures and interventions on the basis of optimal expected utility (often using a cost/benefit
analysis) However, it may be very difficult or even impossible to formulate with such expectations under
conditions of deep uncertainty. Over-reliance on projections may lead to serious errors. Yet, paralysis in the
face of uncertainty may be highly inappropriate. Among the alternatives most often mentioned are the
precautionary principle, ‘robust’ decision making (‘satisficing’ over a wide range of possible futures),
preference for incremental, contingent or flexible (or easily reversible) measures, and so-called ‘no regrets’
measures. These will be addressed in Lecture 3.
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Key teaching points
CLIMATE CHANGE AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
DISCOURSES, AGENTS, CULTURES CONSTRUCT ACTIONABLE FACTS
VARIOUS DRIVERS / CONSTRAINTS, INCLUDING:
KNOWLEDGE-BASED
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES AND VALIES
CONCERN FOR ETHICS AND JUSTICE
ECONOMICS AND POLITICS, ETC….
CONCEPTS AND METHODS TO ADDRESS UNCERTAINTY AND OTHER KNOWLEDGE CHALLENGES
PROCESSES AND INSTITUTIONAL LINKS TO MAKE CLIMATE DATA MORE RELEVANT
APPROACHES TO PROMOTE LEGITIMACY OF THE USE OF SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTS IN PLANNING
Responding to sceptics
How can scientists project climates 50 years from now, yet be unable to predict where it will rain next
month? While seemingly logical, this question confuses climate and weather, a critical distinction. As the
IPCC explains:
Projecting changes in climate due to changes in greenhouse gases 50 years from now is a very different
and much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now. To put it
another way, long-term variations brought about by changes in the composition of the atmosphere are
much more predictable than individual weather events. As an example, while one cannot predict the
outcome of a single coin toss or roll of the dice, we can predict the statistical behaviour of a large
number of such trials. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-faqs.pdf
Information resources for addressing misleading arguments
Ten Popular Myths perpetuated in Canada about the science of Global Climate Change
http://www.earthembassy.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/tenmyths.html
The Royal Society – A Guide to Facts and Fictions about Climate Change. Examines twelve misleading
arguments put forward by the opponents of urgent action on climate change
http://royalsociety.org/Facts-and-fictions-about-climate-change/
DeSmogBlog – Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science
A Canadian source for accurate, fact-based information regarding Global Warming misinformation
campaigns. http://www.desmogblog.com
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2.
Ideologies and values
It should be clear to the students by now that climate change is not just a science. It also has a cultural
dimension, its own history, language, sociology and politics (Hulme 2009). Social theory offers important
insights and a rich body of research on how community values and ideologies shape conceptions of the
problem and of the appropriate public response (Stehr and Von Storch 1995; O'Riordan and Jordan 1999;
Pettenger 2007).
There are many ideologies and value systems that may be probed with regard to their views on climate
change. The approach here is a norms-centered perspective. That is, by focusing on three different types of
responses to the climate crisis, the underlying ideologies about environmental goods, economic growth,
and the roles of government, science and technology are exposed.
Since much of the early policy development on climate change occurred within the confines of
international diplomacy, this analysis relies on the work of international relations scholars. They have
identified three different ways to conceive of the climate policy approaches: ecological modernization,
green governmentality and civic environmentalism. They are discussed below.
a)
Ecological modernization
Ecological modernization (EM) is a policy discourse which advocates social change toward sustainability
(Byrne, Gleeson et al. 2009). EM argues that economic growth can be decoupled from material depletion,
energy use and waste generation through technological and institutional reforms. Importantly, this
approach presumes that economic and environmental goals are not mutually exclusive and as such it fits
within a framework of continuing growth. It posits that a win-win solution can be found to environmental
problems, allowing industry to benefit from increased efficiencies while environmental quality improves.
The problem is conceived as being, at its root, a lack of innovation and technological progress due
essentially to a lack of economic incentive. One example in the planning context may be a developer who
does not install a pricey, high efficiency water heating system in a new building because the operational
savings will accrue mostly to tenants long after she has sold her interest in the building. Nor is the higher
pollution costs of the inefficient water heaters normally reflected in their commercial price. The interest of
the buyers in lower unit costs today may trump any marketing advantage. The solution is to provide various
economic incentives and disincentives to alter the behaviour of sellers and buyers. In this case, a tax may
be imposed on the less efficient water heater. As the various market failures are corrected, society will
adapt with minimal direct government intervention.
Strong and weak versions of EM have been noted. The stronger versions include more robust reforms of
political and institutional structures rendering policy making more open and flexible. There is also an
attempt to transform the role of social movements so they act as watchdogs and partners in decision
making. Most importantly, strong EM efforts would include discursive changes that recast environmental
issues as opportunities to improve business outcomes for the environment, business and the community.
The influence of the EM framework can be seen in some planning responses to climate change. Energy
conservation, transit oriented development and consolidation and densification of urban areas are
examples of technologies that embody ideas of eco-efficiency (Byrne et al 2009, 151). The approach is
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perhaps the dominant discourse at this time. It has theoretical roots in sustainable development paradigms
and the effort to price ecological services.
b)
Green governmentality
In contrast to EM, green governmentality is an approach to climate policy that focuses on governance and
institution building. The problem is deemed to be essentially a lack of effective governance structures,
including poor or absent international mechanisms to manage the global commons. The policy focus is thus
on establishing or strengthening institutions and norms (a new world regime?) to police greenhouse gas
emissions.
This approach may be best exemplified by the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and
proposals for post-Kyoto global mitigation regimes. EU ETS is continent-wide cap and trade system that
depends on careful measuring and monitoring of GHG emissions by tens of thousands of regulated
facilities. Complex rules, centralised allocation of emission permits and regulated trading are key features
of the scheme.
This approach appears to be in line with a science-driven and expert dominated approach to climate policy.
Confidence in the science and in government’s capacity to lead the response is evident. At the same time, it
embodies a top-down, directive approach to environmental policy.
c)
Civic environmentalism
A third, distinct approach to climate policy emerges from the environmental movement. The underlying
premise is that all economic and social activity take place within a finite and closed biophysical system and
must respect the limited capacity of the Earth to support human life (Boulding 1966; Daly 1973). Climate
change and other global environmental challenges (biodiversity loss, desertification, for example) are in
fact symptoms of a larger, structural problem: growth and consumption centered development which is
reaching (or has exceeded) the edge of those ecological limits.
Further development under the current growth paradigm necessarily compromises the stability of the
climate system. Thus, the starting point for any development strategy must be to ask: how much climate
stability would communities be willing to trade off for continued development? Policy should be focused on
curbing growth to achieve a steady-state.
Ultimately, the task is to redefine what welfare and quality of life mean to dramatically reduce
consumption and work-and-spend cultural norms. Advocates of this view may also urge a renewed
commitment to social equity, resistance against media culture to create of a new sense of citizenship.
More radical version of this movement would abandon capitalism altogether and state-centric sovereignty,
moving towards an eco-centric, social justice oriented and decentralised order. A weaker, reform version
would see transnational civil society complement the state centric practices to increase public
accountability and legitimacy.
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3.
The economics of climate change
As in other areas of public policy, the principles and methods of economic analysis have been applied to
climate change and have been highly influential in policy debates. Economists are concerned with the
efficient allocation and flow of goods and services, with the goal of maximizing the welfare (or ‘utility’) of
individuals and society. Economists would characterise climate change as a ‘market failure’, specifically an
“externality” respecting a “public good”. The public good in question may be defined as the global
atmosphere or climate stability (public goods = indivisible, non-rival, non-excludable).
Economists propose “market-based” instruments of public policy to address market failuresi. Their key
objective is to ‘internalise’ the climate change costs in order to send appropriate pricing signals to market
participants (industry, households, individuals, etc). Essentially, this means imposing a charge for carbon
emissions to fossil fuel-intensive goods and services. Purchasers will have to pay higher prices and will
reduce their consumption, ultimately lowering emissions. Contrast market adjustments with regulation
prescribing specified technologies or applying emission performance standards to polluting facilities and
products.
Carbon pricing can be achieved through kinds of policy regimes:
1. Cap and trade, where the government sets the maximum aggregate amount of emissions
allowed and lets individuals and firms decide whether and how to reduce emissions,
including the possibility of purchasing ‘credits’ from other firms in lieu of reducing their
own emissions;
2. Carbon taxes, which are set by the government based on the emission-intensity of goods
and services and must be applied to all covered market transactions.
Carbon pricing schemes, particularly cap and trade, are some of the most discussed policy approaches to
climate change mitigation.
Select works on cultural theory and climate change
O'Riordan and Jordan (1999) Institutions, climate change and cultural theory: towards a common analytical
framework. Global Environmental Change, 1999. 9(2): p. 81-93.
Select works on climate change governance
Agrawal, A and MC Lemos (2007) “A greener revolution in the making? Environmental governance in the 21st
century.” Environment 49(5): 36-45.
Bakker, K (2005) “Neoliberalizing nature? Market environmentalism in water supply in England and Wales.”
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95(3): 542-565.
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Several economic studies of climate change policy are notable. Perhaps the best known is the work of Lord
Stern for the British government. He found, among other things, that the net benefits of strong and
immediate global efforts to reduce GHG emissions would far outweigh the net costs of inaction (Stern
2007). Garnaut, for the government of Australia, also conducted a comprehensive review of the economic
case for climate change mitigation and adaptation (Garnaut 2008). In Canada, the National Roundtable on
Environment and the Economy has engaged various economic analyses of climate change impacts (see
http://www.climateprosperity.ca/eng/climate-prosperity-eng.php). Economic modeling has also been done
to support or challenge various federal and provincial climate policy proposalsii.
Among the key questions asked by climate change economists in those and other analyses are:
1. What will it cost the world to reduce GHG emission or to adapt to climate change (the
answer is often expressed as a percentage of economic growth. For instance, Stern found
that long term costs of mitigation would not exceed 1% of global GDP, Stern, p. )?
2. How do mitigation and adaptation costs compare to the costs of harms that will be
suffered, and risks of inaction?
3. How best to tradeoff economic development and the need for climate stabilization,
especially in light of the welfare and material needs of the developing world?
4. How can societies facilitate the technological innovation necessary to ‘decouple’
economic growth and emissions (recall discussion above of ecological modernization
approach), and remove constraints on the needed restructuring of energy generation
and distribution systems?
5. To what extent are natural resources and public goods such as the atmosphere
substitutable? Will human ingenuity provide an escape to the problem?
6. How to account for the long-term impacts of climate change to ensure inter-generational
equity? Sustainability and stewardship principles favour the preservation of natural
resources at least sufficiently to allow future generation to have the same opportunities
(if not the same set of resources) as communities do today. Standard economic analysis
typically ‘discounts’ the value of future goods and services, favouring the present and
present consumption of economic opportunities at the expense of future generations.
7. What global regime may be instituted to reduce trade imbalances that may result from
uneven climate change policy of various nations and regions?
It should be noted that traditional economic analysis has been challenged and even rejected by many
ecologists and ethicists. Some note the inherent limits of valuation tools that monetize life and other
human and ecological values. An emerging branch of economics, known as ecological economics, attempts
to describe economic policies that would eschew growth and recognize the physical limits imposed by the
natural world on economic growth.
For planners, there are important ramifications in the prevalence of market-based instruments:
1. There may be reticence by climate change policy makers to utilize land use regulation
which may be viewed as too intrusive, inefficient and the product of outdated ‘statist’
approaches to policy making. Traditional land use regulation such as zoning are NOT
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market-based; rather, they may best be characterized as direct, public prescriptions on
market transactions. Thus, a zoning bylaw may ban the building of a tall commercial
building in a residential zone regardless of whether it may be the optimal location from an
economic perspective. To be sure, there are some forms of land use regulation, e.i. formbased codes, performance-based standards) that are more attuned to economic analysis.
Yet, these remain rare.
2. Carbon pricing regimes by design focus on market mechanisms, are most often applied
solely to the industrial sector, and are subject to stringent procedural requirements. Thus,
municipal participation, especially in the area of land use, may be highly constrained. This
may be a major lost opportunity for land use planning agencies to participate in the
emerging carbon markets. Only some types of municipal actions (e.g., landfill gas capture)
have participated in the Alberta’s cap and trade regime (the only one in operation at this
time in Canada).
`
Climate change as a market failure or externality
A market failure is said to occur when incentives and disincentives normally influencing buyers and
sellers are to some extent absent or hidden from the transaction. Consider the purchase of an airplane
ticket: the ticket price reflects various costs (fuel, aircraft manufacture and maintenance, the salaries of
the crew) which are ‘internalised’ costs, meaning they are included in the price you pay. If the price of
fuel goes up, the ticket prices rise, fewer tickets are sold. Other costs, however, and especially those
associated with pollution, may be ‘external’, for instance, the costs of the harm caused by the GHG
emissions of the flight. Thirty years from now, in part because of emissions from aviation, a large section
of prime agricultural land in the lower mainland of BC may be lost to rising seas. The socially optimal
condition may be to reduce the amount of flying today in order to offset some or all of those future
costs. However, the costs associated with relocating farms, loss of yields, loss of agricultural jobs are not
included in the price of the ticket. As a result, buyers of airline tickets today can simply ignore them. As a
result, the public takes more flights than is socially optimal. The market mechanism fails to achieve the
socially optimal condition.
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B.
Mitigation policy and planning
1.
Challenge for policy makers
Of the two policy responses to climate change (mitigation and adaptation), it was mitigation that first
captured the attention of policy makers. Indeed, the first international discussions on a global mitigation
regime were held in the late 1980s. Many policies and strategies, at all levels of government, have been
discussed, proposed and attempted ever since.
Mitigation is a difficult policy problem for many reasons. First, the problem requires global coordination to
implement solutions that may be very costly. The use of carbon based energy is pervasive and global in
scale, touching on virtually all aspects of the modern economy, livelihoods and lifestyles.
Further, there is an apparent mismatch in the spatial and temporal scales of costs and benefits. The entire
world benefits from a local reduction of GHGs anywhere. Due to lags in climate system response, benefits
may not accrue until decades from now, benefitting mostly future generations. Thus, a community may be
reticent to bear high costs today for action that benefits others located very far away (and who themselves
may be laggards, or free riders) or who are yet to be born. For this reason, advocates point to the need for
incentives and officials often stress the shorter term, local co-benefits of mitigation, such as ‘green’ jobs,
lower air pollution and energy security.
While the objective of mitigation can be stated quite simply (i.e., to avoid the worst climate change by
stabilising the GHG concentrations), how this objective is translated into practical policies is a complex
undertaking with uncertain results. It demands answers to the following set of questions:

What level of climate change would unduly harm people, ecosystems and values to be protected?
This is usually expressed in terms of a number of degrees of global warming beyond which climate change
would cause undue damage. Many advocates believe that threshold to be 2°C.

What is the peak concentration of GHGs beyond which that threshold would be exceeded?
Answering this question involves complicated analyses and models take into account the climate sensitivity
of the Earth, the potency and duration of various emissions, feedback and other effects within the climate
system and more. Refer to Lecture 1 and Garnaut (2008). Considerable uncertainty is embedded in that
analysis. The answer would be expressed as a stabilization target or peak, such as ‘no more than 450 parts
per million of GHG emissions’.

What reductions in GHG emissions or increase in GHG uptake must be achieved (and by when)?
This question also requires complex analyses and models taking into account the potency and duration of
various emissions, feedback and other effects within the climate system and more. The answer is often
expressed as a percentage reduction in emissions from a historic baseline. The Kyoto Protocol, for instance,
requires Canada to reduce its total national emissions by 6% off 1990 levels for the period from 2008 to
2012. However, the Kyoto targets were set voluntarily by each signatory and are not tied to any global
reduction figure believed sufficient to avoid dangerous climate change.
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
How should responsibility for achieving reductions be allocated among jurisdictions?
Once the reductions desired are known, some method must be found to allocate responsibility amongst
jurisdictions for achieving them. There are different criteria proposed for this allocation. Fairness suggests
that those areas most responsible for historic emissions (i.e., nations in Western Europe and North
America) should bear most of the responsibility for reductions. Others advocate allocations on the bases of
capacity to reduce future emissions. This would tend to place a heavier burden on developing countries in
Asia and Latin America. Allocations within a country may take into account different economic conditions of
provinces and regional differences in affluence levels (including prospects of future growth), protection of
certain industries, differences in current emissions profiles (greater capacity for mitigation?), and sectors
where emissions may be reduced most economically.

What strategies and methods should be employed to achieve the necessary reductions?
Having allocated responsibility for reductions amongst jurisdictions, policy makers must consider what suite
of policies and measures to deploy. Strategies in the realm of planning are described in the next section.
Policy makers must also consider carefully how measures adopted in different jurisdictions may give rise to
unfairness or affect the integrity of the overall mitigation plan. For instance, a jurisdiction may adopt high
carbon taxes only to have its industry relocate to a neighbouring area. Such a problem, sometimes referred
to as ‘carbon leakage’, may require inter-jurisdictional tariffs or other trade rule.
2.
Role of planning in mitigation policy
While the links between urban form and GHG emissions are often recognised, spatial planning does not
often feature prominently in national and provincial mitigation strategies. Instead, those plans often target
the energy and industrial sectors, environmental policies or fiscal and tax rulesiii.
There may be legal, political and practical reasons for
this. Existing pollution control legislation provides a
ready platform for action at national and provincial
levels. These are areas of competence for higher
levels of government. The relatively small number of
large industrial emitters responsible for a large
portion of supply-side emissions also presents
opportunities
for
immediate
action
with
administrative ease and shorter term results. Refer to
Figure 8.
It may also reflect a conception of the problem as
primarily an environmental (end of pipe) or
technology issue rather than a systemic or structural
problem. A preference for ‘flexible’ economic
instruments (i.e., market based approaches such as
carbon pricing) may also lead policy makers to avoid
land use instruments that traditionally rely on
prescriptive mandates.
Image source: http://www.avc2009.org/avc2009/img/emission.jpg
Figure 4 Reduction of industrial emissions
through ‘market based’ regulations is
a key focus of mitigation policy
advocates and governments.
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Some have argued that land use planning offers important advantages as a mitigation policy tool, especially
in the long term. Land use planning targets the underlying physical conditions that drive (some say compel)
fuel demand to a large extent (e.g., prevailing transport modes and distances to be travelled, housing size
and type). Further, as much mitigation policy is promulgated through international and national-level
policies, planning may have an important role to play in effectively ‘localising’ mitigation objectives
(Davoudi, Crawford et al. 2009). Exercise 2 (Pros/cons of LUP as a mitigation policy tool) asks students to
consider the advantages and drawbacks of land use planning as a mitigation policy tool
Regardless of what mitigation approach is favoured by the national government, spatial planning is likely to
be implicated. Developments in energy and industrial policy can have important repercussions for planners.
For example, planners play key roles in the siting and permitting of new energy systems such as wind farms,
solar energy installations and facilities that support hydrogen or electric car fleets. Moreover, carbon taxes,
offsets systems and other elements of emerging carbon regimes present new opportunities and challenges
for action at the local level.
Even absent support from higher levels of government, planners can incorporate mitigation goals in their
daily work. Arguably, planning is more than a policy delivery mechanism. It is a key arena for debate and
deliberation about principles of sustainable development. As such, every land development project, every
plan making process can become an opportunity to make and implement mitigation policy and to educate
the public about low carbon lifestyles. Finally, as the failure of international and national mitigation plans
becomes more evident, the potential of spatial planning as a mitigation tool may become more widely
recognized.
Figure 5 Development of alternative energy
sources and improvement of
electricity distribution systems are
key elements of the mitigation
agenda, with important implications
for land use planning systems.
Image source: http://tinyurl.com/2etfdgj
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3.
Mitigation measures
In general, reductions in concentrations of GHGs may be realized in one of two ways: a) reducing emissions
or b) Increasing uptake of carbon sinks. Reductions in emissions may be accomplished by reducing use of
fossil fuels or the carbon intensity of the fuels used. This can mean replacing equipment and processes with
more efficient ones, switching fuels especially in vehicles and electric generation plants, or reducing
demand through conservation and reuse. Emissions may also be directly captured, for example from landfill
gases and industrial processes, and stored permanently or burnt for energy.
Increasing uptake of GHGs in carbon sinks means primarily adding vegetation by planting trees or creating
soil conditions conducive to more vigorous plant growth and fewer losses to fire and disease. There are also
geo-engineering approaches such as seeding oceans with iron to increase uptake of CO2. Agricultural
practices such as tilling can also be modified to increase the natural GHG retention of soils.
For urban planners developing a mitigation plan, the first task is to understand the major sources and sinks
in their city. Urban areas in Canada are responsible for a large part of GHG emissions. The key contributing
urban sectors are transportation (gasoline and diesel fuels), operation of buildings and infrastructures
(coal, oil and natural gas for electricity or as heat sources) and the decomposition of waste products that
directly produce methane (a powerful GHG). American studies mapping GHG emission show a close
correlation between GHG emissions, urbanised land and transportation corridors between cities. See Figure
6.
Figure 6 Total emissions of fossil fuel carbon dioxide in the US (2002).
Source: (Purdue 2010).
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Of course, that map may simply reflect the fact that urban areas are where most human activity, and
consequently most of the end uses of energy, takes place. Other studies have shown that there may be
very significant variation in per household GHG emissions within cities, depending to a large degree on the
extent of transportation demand and energy demand related to building typology. See Figure 7. This
suggests there may be considerable potential for large emission reduction through changes in urban form
(i.e., land use planning).
Figure 7 Residents of Toronto living in denser areas, where houses are smaller and use of automobiles
less common produce significantly lower GHG emissions than the typical Ontarian and their
suburban neighbours. Note the wide variance in GHG values (VandeWeghe and Kennedy 2007).
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LECTURE 2 PRINCIPLES OF CLIMATE POLICY
Having analysed the major sources of emissions, mitigation planning requires pursuing development
pathways toward lower energy use and greater uptake of GHGs. Perhaps the most common approach is to
reduce emissions by lowering the use of fossil fuels. Development could be focused on improving the
energy efficiency of buildings (see Owens (1986); Brown et al. (2008)), infrastructures and transportation
systems (see Ewing et al. (2007); Ewing & Cervero (2010)), and promoting lower consumption lifestyles and
a strong conservation ethic. Measures might include the protection of trees, zoning for denser, mixed use
development to reduce transportation demand and promote transit, green building codes and subsidies for
retrofits, permitting of renewable energy generation and distribution systems and the creation of
community gardens.
Note that many mitigation measures are staples of other planning movements and concepts like New
Urbanism, Transit Oriented Development, Smart Growth and Peak Oil, that call for less fuel dependent,
healthier urban environments, although for reasons unrelated to climate change. Also, note that for just
about every sector and area of planning, mitigation approaches may be devised that are either demand
side or supply side controls. See Table 2.
Common mitigation measures in the area of land use planning
Sector
Transportation
Buildings
Waste
Supply side
Demand side
infrastructure for hydrogen/electric vehicles
densification and infill
mixed use zoning
congestion pricing
parking restrictions
active transport networks
district heating
combined heat and power
green building and ‘net zero’ houses
landfill gas capture
efficiency in waste management operations
compact, attached buildings
smaller units
passive house
recycling and composting
product packaging controls
Table 2 Common land use planning instruments for climate change mitigation.
Students should be invited to consider how these and other mitigation measures may differ from other
development and planning principles such as transit oriented development (TOD), new urbanism
movements, smart growth principles and even peak-oil planning movements. To what extent does climate
change and other planning movements overlap and to what extent are they in conflict?
In light of the many synergies that do exist, some may argue that climate change mitigation is nothing more
than the ‘good practices’ which have been advocated for decades by many planners. Even if that is so,
climate change as a new policy objective may offer important (political) opportunity to improve land use
practices. At the same time, climate change policy making involves its own distinct set of challenges and
specialised tools (see Condon et al. (2009)).
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4.
Inventories of urban GHG emissions
Mitigation planning often begins with the development of an inventory of GHG emissionsiv. These are
reports of the performance of all carbon sources and sinks for a given period of time in the area covered.
Calculation of urban emissions can be a complex undertaking. Emissions can be strictly counted based on
spatially-limited geographic boundaries of an urban area, or based on a broader consideration that also
includes significant cross-boundary embodied energy flows occurring in cities (Ramaswami, Hillman et al.
2008; Kennedy, Ramaswami et al. 2009). Emission attribution can also be made based on
’producer‘approaches and ‘consumer’ approaches. A consumer approach is one where the emissions from
the production of a good or service are allocated to the consumer of that good or service.
Guiding principles in the development of inventory approaches include equity (including the risk of cross
boundary leakages), need for a comprehensive approach that covers all emissions and the extent of public
engagement and awareness. Ramaswami et al. (2008) describe state of the art approaches including: airline
travel has been included in GHG accounting for Aspen and Seattle, USA; some foods (rice and milk) and
cement have been included in emissions for Delhi and Calcutta, India; food, cement and freight transport
have been included for Paris, France; and key urban materials such as food, water, transport fuels and
cement are accounted for in Denver, USA.
Some resources for further study of GHG inventory methods are listed in Appendix A.
5.
Governance issues
As suggested earlier, international law and diplomacy have featured prominently in the development of
mitigation regimes. The United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the
umbrella treaty under which a number of agreements and principles have been determined, such as rules
on inventories, the treatment of forestry and other sectors, and most importantly the voluntary reduction
commitments for developed nations in the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997and which came into force in
2005. National and provincial mitigation efforts and plans, including many here in Canada, have flowed
down from those international agreements.
Mitigation has also spanned an extensive and still emerging set of new governance networks. They present
significant financial, resource and institutional opportunities for municipalities. For example, the carbon
trading regime which is a part of the UN’s climate change regime and others like it have given rise to a
regulated ‘carbon market’. It has also generated voluntary carbon markets. There may be opportunities for
cities to generate and sell credits associated with emission reductions efforts. It remains unclear whether a
project based approach to carbon offsets may present some impediments to municipal participation,
especially in the area of land use.
There is also significant activity by associations of sub-national and supra-national governments and NGOs.
ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Change Protection is perhaps the best known. The Western Climate Initiative is an
association of North American states and provinces which are jointly developing a cap and trade system.
For additional information on climate governance and its relationship to planning and other municipal
activity, see Bulkeley & Betsill (2003); DeAngelo & Harvey (1998); Trisolini (2009).
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Figure 8 World greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. Source: World Resources Institute (WRI 2005)
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C.
The adaptation turn
1.
The need for adaptation
Initially, adaptation took a back seat to mitigation in the international negotiations on climate change
policy. This was due in part to concern that adaptation would divert attention and resources from
efforts to reduce GHGs, and insulate richer countries from the worst effects of climate change for which
they are primarily responsible.
It has now become clear, however, that adaptation must be pursued vigorously in tandem with
mitigation. Even if all nations were to immediately and dramatically reduce their emissions, existing
levels of GHGs in the atmosphere will remain high for a long time, delivering serious and long term
climate change impacts worldwide. And of course, efforts to reduce GHG emission are having little
significant results to date; stabilisation is still quite distant and reaching more dangerous levels of
climate change now seems certain. As seen in Lecture 1, already significant impacts are being felt.
The discourses about adaptation have also evolved. Recognition of the limits of government and the
inherent adaptive capacity and coping strategies of individuals and communities has led to a renewed
interest in adaptation as a responsive, creative and positive element of biological and social systems
rather than a reactive and unfortunate necessity associated with failure to tame nature. Today, research
into adaptation theory has been described is exploding and adaptation policy and practices are quickly
rising in prominence in the climate change discourse at all levels (Schipper and Burton 2009).
With regard to adaptation, the role of planners and of the spatial planning system in emerging policy
efforts is clearer and more prominentv. In fact, adaptation to climate change has been said to be ‘at its
core a call for planning’ (Blanco, Alberti et al. 2009). There are strong connections between the design
and management of urban systems and exposure and vulnerability to climate and weather events.
Measures and methods believed to increase adaptive capacity of communities, such as strengthening
infrastructures to counter new threats or meet new demands, efforts to engage and educate
communities regarding new risks, are staples of the planner’s agendavi.
2.
Key concepts in adaptation theory
Unlike mitigation, with its clear goal of stabilising GHG concentrations, the adaptation agenda has no
single, concrete goal. In principle, the challenge for policy makers is to help humanity adapt in a planned
and strategic way to unprecedented climate vulnerability and risks. One may further agree that
successful adaptation entails minimizing potential harms and maximizing benefits from changing
climatic conditions. Yet, what does it mean ‘to adapt’, in practical, concrete terms, to climate change in
a particular location and at a particular time? What should it mean?
Take, for instance, a seaside community facing increasing risk of coastal erosion and flooding,
permanent sea level rise and severe storms. It may opt to respond, as a community, in any number of
ways, including:




relocating important community facilities and infrastructures to higher ground;
tightening flood insurance requirements;
building a sea wall;
permanently banning development from especially vulnerable areas;
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

building a disaster response unit with ties to a regional climate research centre;
holding annual evacuation simulations involving key municipal staff.
Which of these, or the many other possible measures (including doing nothing), would work best and
why? Which measures should be prioritised and on what basis?
The answers depend in part on a set of deeper questions: for whom, when and where should adaptation
be undertaken? What are the consequences, both pro and con, of certain measures? Will some
responses worsen other risks? What forms of adaptation are consistent with sustainable uses of
community resources? Having enacted some of these policies how would the community’s risk profile,
vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience change, if at all?
Adding to the complexity is the fact that adaptation comprises the conduct of all members of a
community, often acting autonomously. Adaptation to climate is something that all human and natural
systems have done since the beginning of time and will continue to do, with or without any government
intervention or community plan. In the words of Schipper and Burton (2009):
Successfully responding to climate variability is as old as human kind—successfully
responding to rapid anthropogenic climate change however presents a new
challenge....climate change is pushing us beyond the limits of existing coping strategies in
many places, and additional adaptation, autonomous or otherwise induced will be
necessary.
One critical aspect of policy evaluation, therefore, is to understand how proposals for planned
adaptation fit within the larger and complex interplay between natural and social processes of change
and adaptation. How can adaptation (writ large) be most effectively introduced, facilitated or managed?
What are the limits, drivers and constraints for successful adaptation at all scales and by every agent?
There is no coherent theory of climate change adaptation that answers all such questions (Smithers and
Smit 1997; Schipper and Burton 2009). Yet, in the past 10-15 years the topic has engaged the serious
attention of many researchers, Canadian scholars prominent among them. In the text below, some of
the key insights developed to date in this emerging area of academic research are explained.
 Focus on capacity building
The complexities and inherent uncertainties involved in adaptation planning require that policy makers
focus on strengthening general adaptive capacity and tools for assessing vulnerability. It is essential to
distinguish between the narrower idea of adaptation as a set of concrete, planned interventions
responding to specific threats (‘hard’ adaptation), and the broader concepts of adaptive capacity and
community resilience. In this regard, adaptation theory borrows heavily from systems theory (originally
developed by population biologists and evolutionary ecologists) (Moench 2009); (Smithers and Smit
1997)) which has been applied to social (human) systems.
There is immense complexity and dynamism in the interaction between human and ecological systems.
As such, the impacts of any environmental or climatic disturbance on a particular community will be
highly dependent on initial conditions, non-linear, chaotic and inherently unpredictable. Attempts to
predict and respond to all possible impacts would be ineffective and inappropriate (Moench 2009).
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Further, as discussed above, there are significant irreducible and unquantifiable uncertainties inherent in
projections of climate change, especially at finer spatial scales and shorter or far off time periods. This
has important repercussions for policy makers and planners. As Moench (2009, p. 252) argues:
Solutions to emerging problems will be clumsy, constructed on the basis of partial measures that
are targeted toward key factors that constrain or enable humans to adapt to conditions as they
emerge within the continuous process of change. It is this focus on the factors that enable or
constrain people to respond to the challenges faced in a particular situation that creates practical
linkages between [adaptation concepts] ... and what can ... be done (emphasis added).
In short, adaptation theory teaches us that planning must be as much, or more, about increasing the
general capacity of communities to respond at all levels (individuals, households, civil society and
government) to a broad range of potential impacts than about predicting specific threats and preparing
concrete measures to counteract them.
Increasing adaptive capacity requires strengthening the underlying conditions (levels of education and
awareness, availability of resources, capacity for self-learning and re-organisation, among others) that
enable a community to respond effectively to a perturbation. Some are generic elements, such as
education, health, income, that influence response potential against many or all changes and are highly
complementary to other policy goals. Others are more specific to certain types of climate change
impacts and risks. For instance, technological innovation has been especially relevant to adaptation to
flooding and higher temperatures (Adger, Agrawala et al. 2007).
 Vulnerabilities vary considerably necessitating a broad array of direct and indirect measures.
Because of social inequities and other factors, adaptive capacity can vary substantially from individual to
individual and amongst social groups and countries. It also changes over time. It has been found that the
adaptive capacity of some human systems, such as the economy, is only as strong as the ‘weakest link’ in
its resources (Adger et al. 2007). Even in highly developed societies, some regions, localities and social
groups may have considerably lower adaptive capacity.
 Planned adaptation must comprehend and manage autonomous forms of adaptation.
Adaptation occurs at two or more scales or levels: one a cultural/institutional shared response and an
individual response, often different from broader collective goals (Smithers & Smit 1997, p. 20). Unlike
natural systems, socio-ecological systems respond to perturbation in part through human agency, our
ability to ‘manage’ adaptation through proactive as well as reactive responses. Further, human
adaptation can reflect a complex set of social values beyond simply individual or species survival (e.g.,
improvement to quality of life) (Smithers and Smit, p. 19). This means that planned adaptation measures
must be designed and administered to complement private, individual conduct or attempt to manage
(constrain) it as appropriate.
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 Mal-adaptation may increase vulnerabilities to shocks and exacerbate inequities.
Another important insight from systems theory relates to the nature of vulnerability and how certain
forms of adaptation can unintentionally exacerbate the risk of shocks from extreme events. Adaptation
theory posits that there are two core and related processes that drive all adaptation: selective pressures
(or natural selection) and agency-driven innovation (e.g., human conduct, including planning) (Moench
2007). Selective pressures are those biophysical and social conditions that can alter a system’s ability to
capture and make efficient use of needed resources or minimize dependence thereon. Systems that
become used to protected (sheltered) conditions may lose incentives to develop adaptive capacities.
Scholars have noted that some social and economic systems may be becoming effectively decoupled
from the natural environment in which they operate becoming increasingly vulnerable to climatic
extremes (Smithers & Smit 1997).
In this regard, adaptations which focus solely on strengthening systems rather than increasing their
resilience, preventing exposures or expanding supplies of scarce resources may be especially
problematic (e.g., air conditioning in response to increase heat or expanded water supply systems to
combat long term drought). They remove incentives to adopt more sustainable practices which could
lead to lower risk in the long term to a broader range of potential impacts. For instance, a seaside
community which chooses to build a sea wall to protect against flooding may exacerbate its vulnerability
to extreme flooding, as was the case in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Planners must consider how proposed adaptation strategies may alter the selective pressures to which
the community is (and should be) subjected and how that may affect the adaptive capacity and
vulnerability profile of the community.
 ‘Pulsed’ nature of adaptation may frustrate plans yet also give rise to opportunities for change
Periods of intense disruption can give rise to political and social opportunities for fundamental change.
This has been referred to as the ‘pulsed’ nature of adaptation, meaning it does not progress in a smooth
and progressive manner, but rather in fits and starts, depending in large part on the frequency and
severity of the stress being experienced. This may be a source of frustration to policy makers, whose
adaptation projects may find little support in the absence of a crisis. By contrast, the occurrence of a
damaging storm or drought may permit a re-settlement plan previously considered too radical.
 The concept of resilience can help guide planners as they manage adaptation processes.
One important concept in adaptation theory, also increasingly popular in policy discourses, is resilience.
A system is said to be resilient if it is able to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure
and function, the capacity for self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change (Adger et
al. 2007). Resilience comprises two characteristics or forms. First, a resilient system may be robust (i.e.,
it is not fragile). This means it has the ability to withstand stress with little sensitivity or vulnerability to
an occurrence. One example could be buildings in the city of Venice, Italy. Buildings there may be said to
be sufficiently robust to withstand water infiltration in their foundations.
One form of resilience is focused on ‘the direct strength of structures or institutions when placed under
pressure.’ (Moench, p. 256). Consider the response of the engineer asked to increase the resilience of a
bridge. She may add cement or steel to the structure to make it stronger and reduce the probability of
collapse in the event of an earthquake, or high wind load.
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Alternatively, a resilient system is one which can change in response to a stress yet retain its basic
functions. For example, a city facing increasing flood risk may identify select parcels of low lying land to
be the first to receive any advancing flood. Water managers would divert the flood there through
controlled opening of levees, minimizing losses of more valuable lands and structures. In another
example, a city may plant a diverse variety of trees in its parks. Should a new pest invade the area, the
urban canopy may be less exposed as only a portion of the trees are susceptible to disease. In both these
cases, the systems in question remain to some extent sensitive and vulnerable to the stress, they are
altered by the stress, yet they retain their functional integrity.
 There may be strong policy rationale for adaptation today considering present risks.
Measures to adapt to the climate are evident all around us, embedded in social , natural and built
environments. They include standards for building constructions, the design, operations and
management of transportation and other infrastructure systems, agricultural practices and many
elements of daily life (Smithers & Smit 1997). As the recent history of climate and disaster related losses
shows, there is considerable vulnerability to today’s climate. Attempts to identify climate risks, induce
and manage continuing adaptations thus relates as much to current climatic variability as it does to long
term future climate change. Significant improvement in existing systems may be made that would
reduce exposures, sensitivity and vulnerability today and in the immediate future.
In that regard, principles of sustainable development and risk based planning (which do not depend on
determining future impacts of climate change) may take us a long part of the way to climate change
adaptation. Many scholars have noted that there is great congruence and synergy in the (sustainable)
development agenda and climate change adaptation. This means that even if there is a lack of certainty
and knowledge gaps regarding many aspects of climate change and impact projections, a strong
rationale for action can be made based on present conditions and observed climate risks.
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3.
Typology of adaptation
Adaptation theorists and practitioners also have developed what has been called an ‘anatomy’ of
adaptation, which classifies the various types of adaptation which may be observed within a community.
These analyses may be helpful for planners as they attempt to identify all possible ways in which the
process of adaptation may be induced and managed. Two typologies are identified below.
Table 3 Types of adaptation according to (Bizikova, Neale et al. 2008).
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Table 4 Types of adaptation according to (Smit, Burton et al. 2000).
Substantively, planned adaptation measures can be classified by how they respond to a threat and the
potential harm or loss. Thus, adaptation measures may have one or more of the following as objectives:
 Prevent the harm by strengthening systems and structures or altering the environment to
reduce exposure, sensitivity and vulnerability;
 Share the harm such as through private insurance or through government subsidies and
guarantees;
 Change the use or location to avoid exposure by preventing development, establishing buffers,
relocating infrastructures and the like;
 Enhance adaptive capacity of systems and society at large through education, knowledge
generation, institutional reforms and the like.
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Table 5 Challenges, pitfalls and unintended consequences of adaptation.
Vertical and horizontal
integration
Need for vertical integration as impacts and knowledge is local but need response
commensurate with regional/global support systems (Moench, p. 250). Cross sectoral
nature of risk and adaptation issues does not map well to sector-based organizations
(Moench p. 250).
Building support for long
term adaptation plans
Political opportunities may arise in pulsed, not necessarily gradual or incremental,
fashion– pressures for fundamental change emerges suddenly and then dissipates
(Moench 251). Need to incorporate risk reduction strategies in standard development
programs (not just crisis response plans). Need to not just reduce risk but set forth
more radical and fundamentally different relationship with climate (e.g.,
hydrometropols) Moench 251.
Pressure to respond to
crisis events
Post disaster, there is a tendency and political pressure to replace rather than reform,
strengthen infrastructure and organizations rather than address underlying structural
vulnerability and increase system resilience; ‘ride it out’, ‘build your way out’ (Penney
2007).
Equity considerations
Tendency to transfer risks to less well off (e.g. more air conditioning in response to
heat waves).
Making matters worse
(higher risk of shock)
Hard resilience: focus on proximate cause and strengthening system or structure
involved. For example, raising the flood levies or subsidizing insurance market. The
problem: risk of catastrophic damage if new coping limit reached. Evaluating the
potential unintended consequences of direct risk reduction measures is key (Moench
2009’, 267) – maybe OK short term but long term ineffective.
Warning flags: low levels of diversification heavy dependence on key data and
technical assumptions. Reliance on narrow assumptions regarding human behaviour,
long lead times and high upfront costs, distributional differences between those
benefiting / bearing costs, lack of clear business model to ensure long term
implementation.
Focus on factors underlying the exposures and vulnerability to risk. Systemic factors
contributing to the livelihood resilience and adaptive capacity include:
Challenge of capacity
building
knowledge systems;
environmental systems;
livelihood and economic systems;
communication systems;
transport systems;
financial systems;
organizational systems (self organize following a disruption);
adapted infrastructure systems (Moench p. 268).
May depends on: flexibility, diversification, ability to learn from events, education,
mobility, risk pooling and spreading, operational techniques for risk reduction before
and following disruptions, convertible assets.
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D.
Bridging the mitigation / adaptation divide
Both mitigation and adaptation are closely linked conceptually and practically. Both ultimately share the
same objective of reducing harms and risks associated with climate change. However, there are
important differences in the primary objectives, spatial and temporal scales of analysis and action, sense
of urgency, primarily beneficiaries and more. Those differences have political and practical
consequences which have served to split mitigation and adaptation scholarship into an ‘artificial
dualism’ only more recently being addressed in the literature (Swart and Raes 2007).
Part of the challenge for planners is how to integrate both mitigation and adaptation into plans and
project considerations, identifying and exploiting opportunities for synergies between the two and at
the same time avoiding measures which conflict, compromise and tradeoffs between the two goals.
Fortunately, there is already much work underway in this area.
A good analysis of the differences between mitigation and adaptation policy is found in Swart and Raes’
2007 article. Their table, reproduced below, sets out their key findings.
Examples of measures to increase adaptive capacity
Include built-in contingencies, flexible and reversible policies and plans, convertibility, expandability and
redundancy (The Sheltair Group 2003). For example:
a subdivision permit may require that ‘rolling easements’ be secured from property owners in areas
of high erosion risk, thereby ensuring public access to the shore should sea level rise;
A flood zone plan may provide for exceptions to rebuilding rights in the event of certain catastrophic
loss;
A building code may require designs amenable to future addition of district heating and alternative
energy generation systems.
Additionally, measures may be implemented to increase public awareness, understanding and engagement
in support of adaptation, resulting in increased adaptive capacity.
Better example of ‘bottom-up’: laws to enable and programs to fund community-run gardens and projects to
de-pave alleyways, increase plantings and create greenways.
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Table 6 Definition, difference and similartiies between mitigation and adaptation planning. Source (Swart and Raes 2007)
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Swart & Raes offer five ways to develop links between mitigation and adaptation measures. They are:





Avoid trade-offs: when designing adaptation options, their consequences for mitigation
should be routinely taken into account and vice versa, something that can be facilitated by
including such considerations in the available methodological toolkits, such as design criteria
and project cost–benefit analyses.
Identify synergies: for specific sectoral climate response options, notably in those sectors
mentioned above, those options can be identified that contribute to both reduced
greenhouse gas emissions and reduced vulnerability to climate change.
Enhance and apply response capacity: since the determinants of adaptive and mitigation
capacity largely overlap, strengthening these determinants in developing countries
contributes to both; in industrialized countries the emphasis should be on putting the
existing capacity into action.
Develop institutional links: between adaptation and mitigation, where they are currently
missing: mechanisms should be put in place to enhance communication between mitigation
and adaptation policy-makers and explore innovative links, e.g. at the national level, but also
in the UNFCCC negotiations, where linking adaptation and mitigation may help in bridging
differences between countries.
Mainstreaming: both greenhouse gas emissions and vulnerability to climate change are as
much dependent on non-climate policies as on climate policies; therefore it would be wise to
integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation considerations into all general
development policies. This is important for mitigation as well as adaptation, in developed as
well as in developing countries.
Swart and Raes also suggest that land and water management and urban planning are the sectors where
most opportunity for mitigation/adaptation synergies exists.
Table 7
Matrix of measures
integrating mitigation
and adaptation in the
realm of spatial
planning.
Source: (AMICA 2007)
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Bizikova et al. (2008) provide a framework for practical integration of both Mitigation and Adaptation
within Sustainability planning (referred to as SAM initiatives) (Bizikova, Neale et al. 2008). Those
guidelines are said to promote the development of adaptation responses with mitigation co-benefits
and are tailored to local long-term priorities aiming to help build resiliency within communities. More
information is provided in Lecture 3. The chart below is their analytical model.
Figure 9
Linkages between adaptation and mitigation, in the context of sustainable
development. Taken from (Bizikova, Neale et al. 2008)
Other voices have urged that planners prioritize mitigation and frame adaptation measures within the
long term global objectives of mitigation. Thus, (Howard 2009) urges that:
1. All local mitigation measures that do not directly and immediately hinder local adaptation
should be recognized for reducing long term need and costs of adaptation (this is a call for a
longer term and more global outlook than some adaptation programs may consider)
2. Some mitigation measures which may be seen to be contrary to local and short term adaptation
initiatives may still be preferred for their long term and globalised benefits
3. Only those local adaptations that also directly and immediately facilitate mitigation should be
favoured as otherwise long term adaptation may be frustrated or overlooked.
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This conflict between mitigation and adaptation in the context of land use planning and urban design
has been elaborated by (Pizarro 2009). He argues that adaptation presents a much more complex set of
issues for the urban designer. While a number of policies (more density, more mixed used) may be quite
appropriate for GHG reductions, their effect on vulnerability and exposure to risk is more complex. In
some climates and for some climate variables, more density may increase exposure and heighten risk.
Similar analyses, some with contradictory findings are found in (Stone 2005).
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IV.
Exercises and instructional activities
1.
Exercise 1 (Responding to skeptics and deniers: role play)
The debate on the validity of climate change has been heated, despite the depth of evidence presented
above and elsewhere. This is a key challenge some planners may face and can be a barrier to making
progress on adaptation planning. To assist students to be prepared for discussions on validity and/or
making the case for action on climate change and adaptation, have students work in pairs, with one
person playing the role of a local politician / Councilor and the other as a climate adaptation planner.
Imagine a situation where you as the planner may be challenged. Use this role play to practice your
ability to quickly and concisely provide the ‘so what’ information that a local politician or decision-maker
would require to view you as credible and feel confident trusting your advice to move ahead.
2.
Exercise 2 (Pros/cons of LUP as a mitigation policy tool)
Break up the class in two groups. Each group will be asked to consider the pros or cons of using land use
planning as a mitigation policy instrument. Consider the political ramifications (cap and trade for
electricity producers versus higher parking prices in congested areas), the level of government that acts,
how quickly results may be achieved, etc.
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V.
Suggestions for in-depth exploration
1.
In Depth Exploration Topic 1 (Integrating mitigation and
adaptation)
As knowledge of climate change evolves, there is more exploration of how mitigation and adaptation
responses are linked. Adaptation responses are generally directed at, and benefit, the local scale while
mitigation actions have potential impact globally.
To explore the subject area in more detail see the following journal: "Mitigation and Adaptation
Strategies for Global Change", Volume 12, Number 5/June 2007. It is a summary of several articles that
explore the connections between mitigation and adaptation. Also explore the AMICA (Adaptation and
Mitigation - an Integrated Climate Policy Approach) website at http://www.amicaclimate.net/home1.html.
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VI.
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LECTURE 2 NORMS OF CLIMATE POLICY
VII.
i
END NOTES
Some economists believe that certain characteristics of climate change present challenges for
traditional externality analysis. Those are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Climate change is global in its causes and consequences
Very long term impacts
Risk and uncertainty pervasive
Non-marginal, society-scale effects (Stern, p. 28).
Consequently, they have urged a more precautionary approach.
ii
See for example http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/media/m_123/toc_eng.html, a report prepared by the
Harper government in opposition to proposed legislation implementing the Kyoto Protocol).
iii
For example, Canada’s national proposals have relied on regulation of emissions from industrial
sources (so-called ‘large final emitters’), proposing ‘cap and trade’ schemes, fuel efficiency
requirements for new vehicles and incentives for energy improvement of consumer products
(Environment Canada 2008). Two provinces, British Columbia and Quebec, have introduced ‘carbon
taxes’, levied on fossil fuel sales or distribution (BC Environment 2010). None of those measures
implicate directly the spatial or community planning systems.
iv
Another methodology associated with mitigation efforts is the long term visioning exercises and
tools.
v
This is not to suggests that planners do not consider mitigation as being equally or more important than
adaptation. Indeed, some planners may prefer to tackle mitigation and consider any attention given to
adaptation to be a sign of society giving up on addressing the underlying cause of the problem. Our point here
is merely that in most climate change mitigation discourses, other areas of public policy dominate, economic
development, trade and industrial policy, air pollution regulations, energy and fuel production, taxation. In
discussions of adaptation, however, land use and planning more generally tend to be a central focus.
vi
The distribution geographically and temporally of the costs and benefits associated with climate change and of
adaptation and mitigation measures is uneven. This may explain the extent to which certain adaptation
measures are more commonly employed. For instance, a community facing high risk of coastal erosion may be
keenly interested in avoiding those effects and thus favour local adaptation measures such as building hugher
sea walls. The benefit from those expenditures (that is, future harms avoided) will be reaped locally. By
contrast, local expenditures to addressing the causes of global climate change (i.e., imposition of energy
efficient building code that reduces electricity use and GHG emissions) would be reaped by the entire globe.
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