Achieving urban climate adaptation in Europe and Central Asia

Many cities across Europe and Central Asia are experiencing the impacts of climate change, but most have not integrated climate adaptation into their agendas. This paper examines the threats faced and measures that can be taken by cities in the region to protect buildings, heritage sites, municipal functions, and vulnerable urban populations. In general, local governments must be proactive in ensuring that existing buildings are climate ready, paying particular attention to emerging technologies for retrofitting the prefabricated, panel style buildings that dominate the landscape while assessing the viability of homes situated in flood plains, coastal areas, and steep slopes. They also must ensure that new developments and buildings are designed in ways that account for climatic fluctuations. Although the resilience of all populations needs to be considered, historical patterns of discrimination require that special provisions are made for the poor and for ethnic minorities such as the Roma because these groups will be most at risk, but are least likely to have access to adequate resources. Urban climate adaptation requires national-level support and local commitment. However, centralized planning and expert-led decision-making under the former regimes may affect the ability of cities to pursue programmatic approaches to adaptation. Therefore, while national governments need to make adaptation a policy priority and ensure that municipalities have adequate resources, local government agencies and departments must be transparent in their actions and introduce participatory and community-based measures that demonstrate respect for diverse stakeholders and perspectives.Wetlands,Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Environmental Economics&Policies,Science of Climate Change,Climate Change Economics

Preparing Cities for Climate Change: An International Comparative Assessment of Urban Adaptation Planning. Semi-Structured Interview Instrument

The research objective of this project is to conduct an international comparative assessment of urban adaptation planning. Cities throughout the world are experiencing chronic problems and extreme events that are being attributed climate change. Although there is a critical need for cities to protect their built, natural, and human environments, there is notable variability in the approaches they are taking. At one extreme, some cities are developing dedicated and integrated climate adaptation plans. At the other extreme are cities that have not established any plans or initiated any adaptation measures whatsoever. Drawing on theories of diffusion and capacity, and case study and survey methodologies, this comparative international research examines: (1) the types of plans for climate adaptation being adopted in cities; (2) factors associated with differences in the approaches urban municipalities are taking toward climate adaptation planning; and (3) the ways that the efforts of nongovernmental and community-based organizations complement, circumvent, and replace government adaptation initiatives. The results from this inquiry will expand our understanding of the forces and factors shaping decisions related to urban climate action. They also will deepen our knowledge of how civil society actors affect the capacity local governments. Disaster risk reduction is a critical component of climate adaptation planning. Therefore, as a consequence of studying adaptation, this research will enhance our understanding of the social and political dimensions of planning for natural disasters. To ensure that the policy-relevant results reach decision-makers in cities, the findings will be summarized in a report and disseminated to members of climate and local government networks. The research findings also will form the basis for case studies that can be used in graduate-level courses and will contribute to the development of a web tool designed to assist cities in their adaptation initiatives. In addition to generating policy and educational materials, graduate students will have opportunities to gain experience conducting research in international settings.Funded by National Science Foundation Infrastructure Management and Extreme Events Program grant #0926349. Endorsed by the International Human Dimensions Programme's (IHDP) core project on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC). Partnered with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability

By the masses or for the masses?: the transformation of voluntary action in the Czech Union for Nature Protection

After the fall of state-socialism, efforts were made to build democracy by creating civil society organizations (CSOs) and forming independent nonprofit sectors across Central and Eastern Europe. However, most of these efforts ignored the mass organizations, state-sponsored interest groups, and quasi-independent associations in existence for many years. To understand how the transition affected existing associations and the forms of volunteerism they promoted, this paper investigates changes in the Czech Union for Nature Protection (ČSOP), an organization that has endured since 1979. Here, it is found that rather than retaining its emphasis on classical modes of voluntary action and participant interaction, ČSOP favors professionally managed activities designed to attract financial support. The case suggests that some of the participatory practices and collectivist norms advanced by associations in socialist times are being weakened as these groups attempt to secure the resources necessary to survive

Preparing Cities for Climate Change: An International Comparative Assessment of Urban Adaptation Planning. MIT-ICLEI Climate Adaptation Survey Instrument

The research objective of this project is to conduct an international comparative assessment of urban adaptation planning. Cities throughout the world are experiencing chronic problems and extreme events that are being attributed climate change. Although there is a critical need for cities to protect their built, natural, and human environments, there is notable variability in the approaches they are taking. At one extreme, some cities are developing dedicated and integrated climate adaptation plans. At the other extreme are cities that have not established any plans or initiated any adaptation measures whatsoever. Drawing on theories of diffusion and capacity, and case study and survey methodologies, this comparative international research examines: (1) the types of plans for climate adaptation being adopted in cities; (2) factors associated with differences in the approaches urban municipalities are taking toward climate adaptation planning; and (3) the ways that the efforts of nongovernmental and community-based organizations complement, circumvent, and replace government adaptation initiatives. The results from this inquiry will expand our understanding of the forces and factors shaping decisions related to urban climate action. They also will deepen our knowledge of how civil society actors affect the capacity local governments. Disaster risk reduction is a critical component of climate adaptation planning. Therefore, as a consequence of studying adaptation, this research will enhance our understanding of the social and political dimensions of planning for natural disasters. To ensure that the policy-relevant results reach decision-makers in cities, the findings will be summarized in a report and disseminated to members of climate and local government networks. The research findings also will form the basis for case studies that can be used in graduate-level courses and will contribute to the development of a web tool designed to assist cities in their adaptation initiatives. In addition to generating policy and educational materials, graduate students will have opportunities to gain experience conducting research in international settings.This research was funded by a grant from the United States National Science Foundation (#0926349) with additional support from ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability World Secretariat and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Climate justice and global cities: Mapping the emerging discourses

Ever since climate change came to be a matter of political concern, questions of justice have been at the forefront of academic and policy debates in the international arena. Curiously, as attention has shifted to other sites and scales of climate change politics matters of justice have tended to be neglected. In this paper, we examine how discourses of justice are emerging within urban responses to climate change. Drawing on a database of initiatives taking place in 100 global cities and qualitative case-study research in Philadelphia, Quito and Toronto, we examine how notions of distributive and procedural justice are articulated in climate change projects and plans in relation to both adaptation and mitigation. We find that there is limited explicit concern with justice at the urban level. However, where discourses of justice are evident there are important differences emerging between urban responses to adaptation and mitigation, and between those in the north and in the south. Adaptation responses tend to stress the distribution of ‘rights’ to protection, although those in the South also stress the importance of procedural justice. Mitigation responses also stress ‘rights’ to the benefits of responding to climate change, with limited concern for ‘responsibilities’ or for procedural justice. Intriguingly, while adaptation responses tend to stress the rights of individuals, we also find discourses of collective rights emerging in relation to mitigation

Navigating institutional pressure in state-socialist and democratic regimes: The case of movement brontosaurus

Using the case of Movement Brontosaurus, a Czech organization founded in state socialist times, this article investigates how civic associations and nongovernmental organizations seeking to promote alternatives to the status quo respond to institutional pressures in different political and social contexts. The case shows that under state socialism, Brontosaurus appeared to conform to state mandates and societal expectations. However, its formal structure was decoupled from many activities to obscure its oppositional intent.After the transition to democracy, the organization was only able to maintain its place in society after it aligned its structure and practices with each other and openly expressed its alternative agenda. The findings demonstrate how social change and alternative lifestyle organizations vary their responses to institutional pressure in ways that enable them to realize their values and pursue their missions while accounting for the political and social contexts in which they are embedded

Preparing Cities for Climate Change: An International Comparative Assessment of Urban Adaptation Planning. A Research Agenda

The research objective of this project is to conduct an international comparative assessment of urban adaptation planning. Cities throughout the world are experiencing chronic problems and extreme events that are being attributed climate change. Although there is a critical need for cities to protect their built, natural, and human environments, there is notable variability in the approaches they are taking. At one extreme, some cities are developing dedicated and integrated climate adaptation plans. At the other extreme are cities that have not established any plans or initiated any adaptation measures whatsoever. Drawing on theories of diffusion and capacity, and case study and survey methodologies, this comparative international research examines: (1) the types of plans for climate adaptation being adopted in cities; (2) factors associated with differences in the approaches urban municipalities are taking toward climate adaptation planning; and (3) the ways that the efforts of nongovernmental and community-based organizations complement, circumvent, and replace government adaptation initiatives. The results from this inquiry will expand our understanding of the forces and factors shaping decisions related to urban climate action. They also will deepen our knowledge of how civil society actors affect the capacity local governments. Disaster risk reduction is a critical component of climate adaptation planning. Therefore, as a consequence of studying adaptation, this research will enhance our understanding of the social and political dimensions of planning for natural disasters. To ensure that the policy-relevant results reach decision-makers in cities, the findings will be summarized in a report and disseminated to members of climate and local government networks. The research findings also will form the basis for case studies that can be used in graduate-level courses and will contribute to the development of a web tool designed to assist cities in their adaptation initiatives. In addition to generating policy and educational materials, graduate students will have opportunities to gain experience conducting research in international settings.Funded by National Science Foundation Infrastructure Management and Extreme Events Program grant #0926349. Endorsed by the International Human Dimensions Programme's (IHDP) core project on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC). Partnered with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability