New York City's $19.5 billion plan to adapt to climate change may be the world's most ambitious. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg is hardly alone in trying to find ways to prepare his city for rising seas and extreme weather as the global fight to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius fades.
Roughly 20 percent of cities around the globe have developed adaptation strategies, according to a 2011 estimate by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the United States, city, county and state governments have developed more than 100 adaptation plans, a separate count by the Georgetown Climate Center found. And through a UN-financing initiative, wealthy nations have poured $11 billion into developing countries to help on adaptation in the past few years.
Experts interviewed by InsideClimate News said that unlike Bloomberg's plan—which detailed 250 climate adaptation strategies and put a price tag on most of them—few other cities have outlined specific actions or provided concrete details on how government agencies should implement initiatives or pay for them.
"A lot of them tend to be an overarching, big vision document," or focus on a single, massive project, like a floodwall, said JoAnn Carmin, a professor in urban studies and planning at MIT. "In some cases, there's no clear work plan in place."
A lack of funding to pay for comprehensive analysis, a focus on other municipal priorities and a shortage of qualified staff is often to blame, she said. And unlike New York, which has its own panel of climate change scientists tapped from some of the best research universities, local governments rarely have access to data on the specific risks that global warming poses to their particular city.
[Besides New York City, Galluci summarized these:]
London: Adopted in October 2011 by Mayor Boris Johnson. The adaptation strategy was developed in response to rising concerns about persistent flooding, drought and extreme heat waves in the city. […]
The final report, "Managing Risks and Increasing Resilience," analyzes the threat of global warming impacts to the city and identifies the residents and infrastructure that are most vulnerable. […]
Chicago, Ill. (2008): The "Chicago Climate Action Plan" is mainly a mitigation strategy for the city of 2.7 million people, though one chapter is devoted to adaptation. At the time, the plan was the first to both identify sources of greenhouse gas emissions and their subsequent impacts, and to propose ideas that respond to those findings, according to [then Mayor Richard] Daley’s office. […]
Rotterdam, Netherlands (2008): "Rotterdam Climate Proof" aims to make the city of 1.3 million people "fully" resilient to climate change impacts by 2025 and to maintain Rotterdam's status as one of the safest port cities in the world. […]
Quito, Ecuador (2008): The push for the plan came six years ago when the steep-sloped Andean city of 2.1 million residents hosted that year's Clima Latino, a regional climate change conference. The city was also experiencing an increase in landslides, floods and droughts, along with the shrinking of the nearby Antisana glacier. Former mayor Paco Moncayo and members of the city's municipal council pushed for a draft plan, which, after meetings with local businesses, research centers and community groups became official policy two years later. […]
Durban, South Africa: Initiated in 2004 by the city's Environmental Management Department (now dubbed the Environmental Planning & Climate Protection Department). The strategy was conceived in large part to help fulfill the municipal government's goal of being "Africa's most caring and livable city" by 2020.
Durban, a city of 3.7 million people and Africa’s busiest port, has rolled out its climate adaptation in stages under the Municipal Climate Protection Program, one of the earliest efforts of its kind. […]
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