Communities Taking the Lead in Planning to Survive and Thrive in a Changing Climate
In this report, by the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners (2017), community-driven climate resilience planning is defined as the process by which “residents of vulnerable and impacted communities define for themselves the complex climate challenges they face, and the climate solutions most relevant to their unique assets and threats.” The underlying premise for community-driven planning is this: the more that residents participate in identifying their needs and developing their own community solutions, the more effective those solutions will be. Without such inputs, any planning may well result in a bureaucratic document that merely sits on a shelf and is unlikely to guide meaningful action.
The report identifies three essentials if communities are to deal effectively with climate change:
1. Creating a vision of climate resilience and a set of community priorities that flow from that vision.
2. Identifying where the community is vulnerable and what assets it has, leading to solutions that are best suited to that unique community.
3. Building a community voice and power to get those climate solutions resourced and implemented.
The report outlines the following key guiding principles:
· whole systems thinking
· desired outcomes reflected at every step
· planning processes as learning processes
· planning into action
· balancing power dynamics among stakeholders
For example, in applying whole systems thinking, the authors argue that since the problems (racism and social injustice, climate change, economic inequality, broken democracy) are interrelated, the solutions (cooperation, regeneration, democracy, inclusion) must equally take all these factors into account. A learning approach to planning means helping residents learn how to participate in conversations about climate science and enabling local leaders to educate organisational and governmental decision makers about their needs.
The document next describes the essential elements of community-driven planning. Then follow case studies where city-wide communities have taken a central role in resilience planning.
The planning framework is certainly valuable, in putting local community members at the heart of building resilience to climate change through planning for adaptation. However, putting this into practice can be a challenge. To try to follow the whole planning framework would require a massive engagement of community members and the coordination of a wide range of participating organisations.
Local leadership and community-based organisations are undoubtedly important. However, influential individuals in different organisations may have different priorities. Can they be persuaded to pull in same direction? This raises the question of just-in-case vs just-in-time. Is it possible to engage communities where, despite recurrent crises, many people and organisations think they can continue with business as usual, that emergencies are aberrations rather than the new normal? It can be hard to galvanise a whole community into sustained, coherent action.
The document’s sensible focus on issues of food, water, energy, transportation, land-use, housing, and economic opportunity would need a city-wide or local government-wide program. And this of course assumes functional government bodies which can be persuaded to align themselves with community-driven resilience agendas.
Despite these possible deterrents, the document offers sensible, manageable ways of helping communities take action to enable them to survive and thrive together in the face of coming change fuelled by the climate emergency.
Read the whole framework here:
Contributed by Wendy Morgan