One of the most challenging issues in adapting to the possible impact of
climate change is whether government able to find and set an appropriate and
balance policy between proposed adaptation actions and other development
agenda; moreover about how to translate scientific findings into suitable
policy. This paper aims to share experience from two cities in Indonesia which
are trying to integrate the process and result of climate risk and adaptation
assessment (scientific process) into the city spatial and non-spatial
development planning system, i.e. Semarang City in Java Island and Tarakan
City in Kalimantan Island. The experiences being shared here came from the
involvement of authors in the action research for Tarakan City which aims to
integrate adaptation actions to development plan and planning studio for
Semarang Municipality which develops Local Action Plan on Climate Change
Adaptation. By far, it can be concluded that local government on both cities
still not entirely sure on considering the impact of climate change, even more
there are still doubts and misconception about the climate change adaptation
concept itself. However, basically local governments are open and welcome the
rationale for integrating climate risk and adaptation assessment into their
spatial and non-spatial development plan. In addition, each city has their own
way to manage the interaction between scientific and policy realm; i.e. in
Semarang City through mechanism called Shared Learning Dialogue (SLD) and in
Tarakan City through closed collaborative works between researcher and
government officials. Both strengths and weakness of each approach will be
elaborated further in this paper. Finally, this paper will offer the entry
points to integrate climate change adaptation into spatial and non-spatial
plan development system in Indonesia, based on reflections from both cases, as
well as how it may function elsewhere
