New Levels of Climate Adaptation Policy: Analyzing the Institutional Interplay in the Baltic Sea Region

International policy development and expected climate change impacts such as flooding, landslides, and the extinction of sensitive species have forced countries around the Baltic Sea to begin working on national climate adaptation policies. Simultaneously, the EU is building both a central and a macro-regional Baltic Sea-wide adaptation strategy to support national policy developments. However, it yet remains unclear how these EU strategies will complement each other or national policies. This article analyzes the constraints and opportunities presented by this new institutional interplay and discusses the potential of the forthcoming EU strategies to support national policy. It does so by mapping how adaptation is institutionalized in two case countries, Sweden and Finland, and is organized in the two EU approaches. The vertical institutional interplay between scales is analyzed in terms of three factors: competence, capacity, and compatibility. Results indicate institutional constraints related to: risks of policy complexity for sub-national actors, an unclear relationship between the two EU approaches, an overly general approach to targeting contextualized climate change vulnerabilities, and a general lack of strategies to steer adaptation. However, there are also opportunities linked to an anticipated increased commitment to the national management of adaptation, especially related to biodiversity issues.Peer reviewe

How to assess sustainability transformations: a review

Peer reviewe

Kaupungitko keskeisiä ympäristöpolitiikassa?

Kaupungit ovat olleet ympäristöpolitiikan aktiivisia toimijoita jo useamman vuosikymmenen ajan. Kaupunkien itsensä lisäksi niiden roolia ovat nostaneet esille etenkin Yhdistyneiden kansakuntien ilmastoneuvottelut ja erilaiset kansainväliset säätiöt, mutta varsinaisten toimien vaikutuksia on tutkittu jokseenkin vähän. Miten vaikuttavia ja tehokkaita nämä kaupunkien toimet ovat? Saadaanko niillä aikaan haluttua muutosta? Kaupunkien ympäristöpolitiikassa tarkastellaan kysymyksiä liittyen politiikkatoimien kehystykseen sekä toimien vaikutuksiin ja niiden arviointiin. Yhtäältä kaupungeissa herää kiinnostus siihen, miten jo olemassa olevia toimia voidaan uuden tiedon valossa parantaa

Framework for Assessing Public Transportation Sustainability in Planning and Policy-Making

Transportation plays a key role in urban sustainability planning and urban greenhouse gas emission reductions. Globally, cities have established sustainability agendas and policies to guide the shift from traditional private automobile dependent transportation systems towards an increased use of public transportation, cycling, and walking. While the surrounding physical urban form and governance structures condition public transportation services, there are also many other factors to consider when discussing sustainability. As such, comprehensive planning and policy-oriented assessment frameworks that are independent of local conditions are still largely missing in literature. This paper presents a Public Transportation Sustainability Indicator List (PTSIL) that provides a platform for an integrated assessment of environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability through an indicator-based approach. To demonstrate its use, the PTSIL is applied to analyze the policy documents of public transportation agencies in Helsinki, Finland, and Toronto, Canada. The results show that while both cities achieve relatively high scores in all dimensions, there is still high variability among individual indicators. The PTSIL presents a missed stepping stone between descriptive definitions of transportation sustainability and case specific sustainability performance assessments, offering an opportunity within the planning and policy-making sectors to review, assess, and develop public transportation services comprehensively.Peer reviewe

The influence of socioeconomic factors on storm preparedness and experienced impacts in Finland

Extreme weather events, such as storms, may cause material damage, injuries, and interfere with day-to-day operation of societies. Earlier research on natural hazards and climate change adaptation has found that demographic and socioeconomic factors influence the way individuals prepare for and are affected by natural hazards. However, research often focuses on areas with high exposure and vulnerability and research on low exposure and vulnerability areas is scarcer. To address this gap, we ask: do socioeconomic and demographic factors matter in how individuals prepare for and are affected by storms in Finland? Our data consist of an internet survey (n = 1014) conducted after a severe winter storm hit Finland in the beginning of 2019, and we analyze the data with Chi-squared tests and logistic regressions. Our results show that respondents? education level or employment status are not connected to whether they took preparedness measures or whether they experienced harm. Instead, the type of residential property does play a part. In addition, respondents who had experienced storm-related harm during recent years are more likely to prepare than those who have not. In conclusion, socio-demographic factors seem to have only marginal influence on storm preparedness or experienced impacts in Finland, which contradicts earlier research. This may stem from the relatively equal distribution of well-being among the population.Peer reviewe

The Old and the Climate Adaptation: Climate Justice, Risks, and Urban Adaptation Plan

With the transition to carbon-free economy, concerns have grown about the ?green divide? ? the separation of society into different social groups whose socioeconomic status determines one?s well-being from climate change impacts. Studies in environmental justice concur that the adverse effects of urban climate change are disproportionately greater for the demographically vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, the children, and the socially marginalized. Yet, little is known about how these social groups contribute to urban climate change policies. Accounting for local climate risks and the presence of national adaptation schemes, this study examines whether the implementation of adaptation policies in the 902 European cities is influenced by the proportion of these vulnerable groups. Our results show a positive and significant association between the proportion of elderly citizens and adaptation policies among these European cities. The result of this study offers local level empirical evidence to the climate justice discussion and suggests that the adaptation policies adopted by these European cities are working to ameliorate environmental injustice faced by the older and weaker social groups.Peer reviewe

Governing urban sustainability transitions : urban planning regime and modes of governance

There is an increasing need for urban sustainability transitions, though empirical cases that focus on the governance of these processes over time are not plentiful. This study addresses that gap by examining the governance of an urban transition in an eco-neighbourhood in Helsinki, using the framework of a multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions and modes of governance. This study shows how the modes of governance have changed from the start of the planning in 1994-2018 and how the different dimensions of the urban planning regime have enabled or constrained a sustainability transition, based on a document analysis and semi-structured expert interviews. As for the modes of governance, hierarchical and network were most widely used. The plot assignment stipulations that contained sustainability requirements, as well as the collaborative area working group method, have been scaled up city-wide since. This study concludes that more process-focussed policy instruments are needed.Peer reviewe

The role of renewable energy policies for carbon neutrality in Helsinki Metropolitan area

Abstract Renewable energy policies are necessary for achieving carbon neutrality which is the main goal for climate change mitigation. The cities in the Helsinki Metropolitan area have committed themselves to significantly reducing carbon emissions through various climate measures including some measures for renewable energy utilization. We use multilevel perspective (MLP) and renewable energy frameworks to examine the role of renewable energy policies to carbon neutrality in the Helsinki Metropolitan area and base our analysis on various policy documents and semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that current renewable energy policies in the Helsinki Metropolitan area are weak and many challenges exist. Nevertheless, many options are available for improving existing policies. The cities have many opportunities to adopt various energy policy measures, including small-scale renewable energy production in building premises, renewable energy integration to district heating, demand-side solutions for energy utilization, and increasing budgets and subsidies to renewable energy production and enhancement of the social acceptance of renewable energy. Such additional policies are needed to reach carbon neutrality in the Helsinki Metropolitan area.Peer reviewe

Fluctuating Rainfall, Persistent Food Crisis—Use of Rainfall Data in the Kenyan Drought Early Warning System

Peer reviewe

A framework for identifying cross-border impacts of climate change on the energy sector

Peer reviewe