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A Framework for Equitable Climate Change Adaptation for Municipalities

Municipal governments play a crucial role in land use planning and management in climate change, as noted in the Milestone document of Canada’s 2023 National Biodiversity Strategy, which, as a draft document, is currently open for public comment until February 9, 2024. To facilitate “[e]nsuring a whole-of-government approach to create policy coherence across environmental, economic, and social mandates”, as called for in the Milestone document, it is worth asking how can municipal governments facilitate equitable approaches to climate change adaptation?

Both the USDN Guide to Equitable Community-Driven Climate Preparedness and the ICLEI Equitable Climate Change Adaptation Report (that draws from the USDN Guide) offer a framework for local and municipal governments to develop equitable and inclusive climate change adaptation strategies. Both documents encourage a systems-based approach to identifying historical inequities in community planning and how the impacts of climate change across communities are assessed, knowing that “climate change vulnerability[ies] are not evenly spread.”

Equitable climate change adaptation involves municipalities and partners fostering equitable and inclusive participation leading to community-driven approaches to climate change adaptation. Drawing from the USDN guide, the ICLEI report elaborates on three equity objectives for local governments engaging in inclusive climate change adaptation strategies; these are procedural, distributional, and structural. Procedural objectives address the fair transparent inclusive processes and treatment of people, and highlights engaging participants from “communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.” Distributional objectives address an equitable distribution of resources and of the benefits and burdens associated with projects. Resources should also prioritize communities that experience “the greatest impacts, inequities, and unmet needs.” Structural objectives “commit to correct past harms and prevent unintended consequences” as well as address the inequities undergirding structural and institutional systems.

The ICLEI report offers a step-by-step approach to making the case for municipal governments to center equity in climate change adaptation and offers examples for climate change impacts on equity issues including, housing and homelessness, energy security, food security, and green infrastructure and public space. The report also highlights three associated project types, offering examples of adaptation infrastructure projects, adaptation plans and policies, and programming for climate adaptation, including the Project Watershed: Kus-kus-sum involving a partnership with K’ómoks First Nation and the City of Courtney in British Columbia, and related subsequent restoration plans.

Over 61 cities from around the world – including 23 Canadian cities – signed the Montreal Pledge (since it was proposed at COP15 in 2022) to undertake tangible actions to protect biodiversity. Several cities, including Montreal, Vancouver, and Quebec City also endorsed the Edinburgh Declaration, which recognizes “the contributions by subnational governments (including cities and local authorities) to the achievement of global diversity goals and targets” as laid out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

Knowing that municipal leaders play a key role in determining how to “halt and reverse” the loss of biodiversity in cities, it is vital for cities to consider how to move from their intentions for equity in climate change adaptation, to achieving measurable outcomes.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Rich Martello, Unsplash)

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Planning for Climate Change in Canadian Municipalities

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Planning for climate change in Canadian municipalities can include different approaches undertaken by city governments to manage natural resources, land uses, transportation, infrastructure, and city services in order to mitigate, or adapt to, climate change. These approaches may also involve diverse members of the public in decision making processes.

An official plan (or general, community, or master plan), is a formal document that helps a city or community to outline a vision, and key objectives for various aspects of land use and development in their jurisdiction, and over a long period of time (sometimes 10 years or more). In Canada, cities of different sizes are required by provincial law to have an official plan, like in Ontario. Official plans can be amended from time to time too. In 2010, the City of Iqaluit (Nunavut) was the first municipality in Canada to incorporate climate change in its General Plan (see section 2.5). The extent to which municipalities include climate change goals in their official plans varies widely across Canada.

Some municipalities are seeking guidance to find innovative ways to address climate change through their official plans, and they have developed different kinds of partnerships to achieve their goals. For example, the Clean Air Partnership published a report based on their collaboration with approximately 30 municipalities in Ontario to seek ways to promote clean air initiatives and to address climate change through municipal official plans. In another example, the National Measures Report 2019, released by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), highlights how 400 municipalities, members of the FCM’s Partners for Climate Change Protection (PCP) program, developed 420 projects across Canada to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the local level. These are projects, rather than plans, that show how city-operated facilities and services, as well as local businesses, homes, and transportation, are all vital to reducing GHGs in the atmosphere.

The Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP), working on behalf of planners across Canada, offers various informational resources on climate change and planning. The CIP’s Policy on Climate Change Planning, encourages professional planners to incorporate climate change-informed planning into all aspects of planning for cities and regions in order to meet an ethical obligation to the planet. However, among the barriers that prevent planners from incorporating climate change priorities into planning practice are the lack of political support and of up-to-date information, for decision making and forecasting.

The Climate Alliance, a network of 1,800 European municipalities – large and small, urban and rural – has developed a partnership with Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin to address climate change at the global scale and to emphasise the importance of sustainable forestry worldwide. Since Canadian municipalities are located on Indigenous lands, municipalities might consider assessing how their climate change priorities could align with the climate change priorities of the Indigenous communities whose lands they occupy. Such an effort may highlight shared or divergent priorities in fighting climate change, and the potential for communities’ resilience to climate change effects.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

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