Adrienne I. Greve

An Assessement of the Link between Greenhouse Gass Emissions Inventories and Climate Action Plans

Problem: Basing local climate action plans on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories has become standard practice for communities that want to address the problem of climate change. Communities use GHG emissions inventories to develop policy despite the fact that there has been little theoretical work on the implications of the assumptions embedded within them. Purpose: We identify elements and assumptions in emissions inventories that have important policy implications for climate action plan formulation, aiming to help planners make informed, defensible choices, and to refine future GHG emissions inventory protocols and climate action planning methods. Methods: We conducted a content analysis of 30 city climate action plans selected as a stratified random sample. We collected data on 70 different factors and used summary and trend statements, typologies, and descriptive statistics to link our findings to our research questions. Results and conclusions: Climate action plans obviously vary in many details, but most contain all of the core GHG emissions elements suggested in common protocols. We found GHG emissions inventories to be technically accurate but found their reduction targets to fall short of international targets. We also found exogenous change and uncertainty to be unaccounted for in emissions forecasts and reduction targets. The plans generally do a poor job of linking mitigation actions to reduction targets. Takeaway for practice: GHG emissions inventories supporting climate action planning are reasonably standardized, but documentation of data and assumptions should be improved and GHG reduction targets should be justified. The effect of future changes that are beyond the direct control of the community plan should be accounted for in GHG emissions forecasts and reduction targets. Rapid anticipated population growth should be acknowledged and taken into account, both in GHG emissions forecasts and in setting reduction targets. Effects of mitigation may be difficult to predict reliably, yet can be partly offset by effective monitoring that evaluates progress and changes course when necessary. Research support: None.

Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

Adaptation strategies prepare a community to be resilient in the face of unavoidable climate change impacts. Climate impacts such as sea level rise, temperature changes including extreme heat events, and change in precipitation patterns can have a variety of secondary impacts on community conditions from human health and safety, to economics, to ecosystem integrity. The challenge of developing effective community adaptation policy is the need to apply the evolving science that describes a global phenomenon at a regional and local level. The inherent difficulty in projecting global climate change impacts is amplified at these levels; currently, regional and local forecasts of the impacts of climate change are considered to be very uncertain.1 Handling this uncertainty in a policy context requires a combination of flexibility, a willingness to adapt, and careful evaluation of potential climate impacts in the local context.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory

The technical definition of a community greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) inventory is an accounting of GHGs emitted by a community to (and in some cases, removed from) the atmosphere over a period of time, usually a calendar year. The inventory provides the baseline or existing condition from which to measure progress toward a GHG reduction target. This approach of quantifying a problem is not novel for most communities. Transportation studies that quantify the amount of traffic on roadways or housing studies that quantify the housing stock and assess its affordability are just two examples of gathering quantitative data in support of planning.

Response to Young and Wolf: goal attainment in urban ecology research

Our critique focuses on the poorly defined key concepts, methodological inconsistencies, circular research design, and over-reaching substantive claims made by Young and Wolf. We suggest that Young and Wolf have provided an assessment of the Urban Ecosystems journal, not of urban ecology as a field. We conclude by identifying questions to guide a bibliometric analysis that focuses on a collaborative and interdisciplinary future of urban ecology (how are participating disciplines contributing to urban ecological research and scholarship; what theories and conceptual frameworks are being used, and how are these theories being tested and modified; and what mixed methodologies are being developed to collect data to address complex urban issues that are inherently interdisciplinary). We take seriously Young and Wolf’s call for a “fundamental discussion as to if and how the intentions of the field have been or need to be updated” and argue that such a discussion requires a more inclusive, rigorous, and meaningful identification of the “core” of urban ecology literature than provided.

Linking urban form, land cover pattern, and hydrologic flow regime in the Puget Sound Lowland

The mismatch between political and watershed boundaries, jurisdictional differences in urban form, and data availability can limit the utility of past research findings that relate measures of urban development to urban stream function. This research complements existing research by building a quantitative link between urban form, land cover pattern, and the resulting hydrologic flow regime. Five land cover pattern measurements responded to urban form and were found to be resistant to the influence of watershed size and shape. Lot coverage had the strongest association with hydrological metrics measuring flashiness. The land cover metrics associated with hydrologic impacts were the interspersion and juxtaposition index for grass, aggregation index of high urban, and percent forest cover.

Climate action planning

The U.S. Global Change Research Program’s June 2009 report to the president and Congress clearly establishes the nature of the global warming problem:

Time to Take Action

Strategic local plans focusing on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing a community’s resilience in the face of unavoidable climate impacts are being pursued nationwide. The development of these climate action planning strategies, which are either included in a stand-alone plan or incorporated into comprehensive land use plans or sustainability plans, is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. Development of these plans represents a unique opportunity for communities not only to contribute to solving a global problem but to position themselves to thrive well into the future. Climate action planning should be seen as a chance for communities to control their own destiny in the face of shifting conditions, and to act as leaders in the formation of effective, innovative climate policy.

Sustainable Development, Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Management

Climate change necessitates changes to the methods and procedures of disaster management. A triggering event results in disaster due to the severity of impacts and sequential, secondary consequences. These consequences result from factors such as the biophysical, social, political, economic, and structural context of the community experiencing the event. Climate change adds an additional progressive factor that increases the potential severity and frequency of triggering events and the vulnerability of communities experiencing the impact. Projecting future climate change impacts is imperfect, with a high degree of uncertainty. This uncertainty combined with the self-organizing, emergent properties that characterize urban systems, demands evaluation of the question, what qualifies as recovery? The manner in which policy is formulated must be adjusted to accommodate the dynamic contexts that may be subject to disaster triggering events. To address this need, disaster management must make adaptive capacity one of its primary goals. This is achieved through a process that combines risk assessment, comprehensive vulnerability assessment, iterative policy development and implementation, and ongoing public engagement. One of the critical aspects to long-term disaster recovery in the context of climate change is consideration of both local and regional contexts. Future adaptive capacity is closely tied with regional sustainability. This connection to sustainability is due to the fact that progressive climate change may further stress systems already being pushed by human development such as water and air pollution, habitat loss, and other degraded ecosystem services. Disaster events can result in the breaking of already stressed system connections. This confluence of events must be considered as part of disaster management. Further, ongoing monitoring of these systems and clear acknowledgement of their role in the ongoing functioning and vitality of a city is critical. Without continuous monitoring and iterative update of management procedures and local policy, communities will not be adequately prepared for an uncertain future.

Communities Leading the Way

This chapter presents six cases of communities that have prepared climate action plans (CAPs) and are now in the process of implementing those plans. The cases are chosen for their diversity of experiences and lessons learned. They illustrate many of the principles outlined in this book and demonstrate that climate action planning is possible in all types of communities. The City of Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon, have been in the business of developing and implementing CAPs since the early 1990s and show how to construct a successful program over the long term. The City of Evanston, Illinois, shows the benefits of building “social capital” in the community that creates a grassroots capability for doing community-based climate action planning. The City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, demonstrates the power of local partnerships among public, private, and nonprofit entities to develop and implement plans. The City of San Carlos, California, shows how a city-led planning process integrated into an update of the city general plan can ensure that a CAP will have the authority and backing to be successfully implemented. Miami-Dade County shows that counties can do climate action planning and that it can be integrated with a larger effort of achieving sustainability. And finally, the City of Homer, Alaska, demonstrates that big ideas can come from small places and that implementation is where the real work takes place. Communities beginning to work on their own climate action plan can look to these communities for insights on how to best prepare a CAP.

Emissions Reduction Strategies

Strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions form the core of a climate action plan (CAP). The emissions reduction strategies (also frequently called mitigation strategies) are the actions, programs, and policies that a community undertakes to reach its GHG emissions reduction targets. Common examples include constructing new bicycle paths, providing incentives for installation of solar panels, and requiring that new development meet strict energy efficiency or “green” building standards. The development of these strategies is an iterative process that should balance the GHG reduction potential, upfront and ongoing costs, and social and political feasibility. Most reduction strategies have benefits beyond emissions reduction; these are called co-benefits. For example, reducing GHG emissions can also lower ground-level ozone concentrations in a community, which will yield public health benefits, especially for those who suffer from asthma or other respiratory conditions. The development of reduction strategies should be seen as an opportunity not only to reduce GHG emissions and the progression of climate change but as a chance to position a community to become more economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable.