Tools for EU cities to implement adaptation strategies to Climate Change
Climate Change causes new threats to cities, urban decision-makers and city officials therefore need to adapt their policies and strategies. The Committee of the Regions published in the beginning of 2011 the report “Adaptation to Climate Change: Policy instruments for adaptation to climate change in big European cities and metropolitan areas”. To ensure adaptation local and regional authorities must be recognised as key actors. Many urban policy makers are already anticipating and to maximise effectiveness good practices must be shared. The study offers innovative tools and guidance by evaluating existing best practices from 20 European cities.
Adaptation requires innovative solutions and information dissemination
In 2009 the European Commission published a White Paper which promotes an integrated climate adaptation strategy involving all regional and municipal actors. The paper calls for an strategic overarching EU approach that does not solely depend on market or environmental changes. The EU adaptation strategy has an implementation period from 2009 till 2013, which also includes the EU Cohesion Policy (2007-2013) and the 2007 Leipzig Charter on Sustainable Cities. The Committee of the Regions supports these guidelines and has set several recommendations and measures for city administrations in order to implement and evaluate adaptation strategies. The study outlines the following climate challenges:
- loss of biodiversity;
- overarching;
- urban heat island effect and heat waves;
- drought and water efficiency;
- river floods and sea level rise;
- intense precipitation.
The recommendations are based on a structure involving 3 main tasks
1. A
literature review: analysing 10 key sources
on climate change. This part of the research outlines the most
important barriers and challenges cities can face. One of the main
issues raised is the complexity of
institutional structures, which makes it difficult to identify and
manage several groups of stakeholders. Furthermore the review
identifies the following factors for a successful adaptation
strategy:
- leadership:
- stakeholders;
- information and knowledge;
- adaptation as learning;
- tools and guidance.
2. Emperical Case studies: a survey involving 20 EU metropolitan areas divided into 2 phases. The first phase includes interviews with local partners analysing the overall adaptation strategy per topic and involved actors. The second phase evaluates individual adaptation measures, policy instruments, objectives and synergies.
3. Inventory of Policy Tools and recommendations: contains a 5-step integrated management cycle (developed by ICLEI), which responds to the main findings of the second task and puts the success factors of the literature review into practice.
Involved organisations
The report was conducted by:
- Ecologic Institute in Berlin and Vienna;
- AEA group;
- ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability;
- Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC).
Publication date
2011
Document type
Policy
Source
Committee of the Regions
- Rating:
Rated 0 time(s)