Elsevier

Land Use Policy

Volume 101, February 2021, 105188
Land Use Policy

Urban planning policy must do more to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation actions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105188Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Evaluates urban planning policy documents across scales of government and sectors.

  • Limited inclusion of climate change in urban policy documents was found.

  • Limited integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation was evident.

  • Identifies opportunities for climate change action to be implemented in land use planning.

  • Framework developed can assist urban planners meet Paris Agreement targets.

Abstract

Well-designed urban planning policy can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to anticipated climate change impacts. However, there has been limited analysis of the extent to which urban planning policy documents addresses climate change adaptation and or mitigation. There is a need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and to be well adapted to this change (in line with the Paris Agreement). Achieving this goal will assist in limiting damage and loss to humans and the natural environment. This paper presents a detailed qualitative and quantitative evaluation of urban planning documents (policy, regulation and law) in the state of Victoria, Australia, and the degree to which climate change mitigation and adaptation (with a focus on sea level rise) are addressed and integrated. Two scales of government (state and local) were analysed across three policy disciplines (urban planning, climate change and flood management). The evaluation framework contributes to the few tools for analyzing legislation, regulation and strategic policies for climate change adequacy. The findings reveal limited climate change adaptation and mitigation actions in urban planning documents. Additionally, there is limited integration of adaptation and mitigation actions. Important opportunities for better alignment of policies across disciplines and government levels in line Paris Agreement goals are identified, to ensure implementation in decisions made about land use and development. The analysis finds that urban planning policy must do more to include and integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation actions.

Section snippets

Climate change and the urban environment

Cities are significant contributors to climate change. They are where the majority of humans now reside and are a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (UN-HABITAT, 2011). Cities are increasingly experiencing the impact of climate change through extreme weather events, bushfires, flooding, storm surges and sea level rise (SLR) (IPCC, 2014), which will increase as climate change intensifies (IPCC, 2018). These direct impacts will have secondary impacts on cities, including: availability

Urban planning

Urban planning seeks to manage the use and development of land in a way that considers, confronts and resolves the conflicts between demand for growth, social equity and the environment (Campbell, 1996). There are numerous tools available to urban planners to articulate and affect the desired outcomes for cities, and these can be expressed at multiple scales. As noted by Hopkins, “a plan identifies a decision that should be made in light of other concurrent or future decisions” (Hopkins, 2001

Background information on the case study – Victoria, Australia

Australia has a federal system of government, where power is shared by a federal government and six states. There are an additional eight territories that can be self-governed or administered federally. The state of Victoria is located in the south-east corner of the Australia’s main island. It makes up just 3% of the country’s total land area (Geoscience Australia, 2020), yet is home to 26 % of the country’s population (ABS, 2019a). The majority of the state’s 6.5 million residents live in the

Climate change mitigation

The results of the policy evaluation can be found in Table 4. Looking at mitigation across policy documents analysed (Table 4), seven of the twelve policy documents explicitly mention mitigation. Of these, five documents specify targets in line with the Paris Agreement. Mitigation is not addressed in the P&EAct, Planning for Sea Level Rise and Flood Guidelines. Regarding the specific mitigation actions (criteria M3-M14), three are not addressed at all.

Mitigation was explicitly addressed in all

Conclusions

This analysis has provided important insights into planning for climate change in the state of Victoria, Australia, and the extent to which the need to mitigate GHG emissions and adapt to climate changes is addressed. The findings add to the limited research focused on policy to address climate change, by looking across scales of government (local and state) and disciplines (urban planning; climate change and flood management). Overall, the analysis found that the state of Victoria has

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Anna Hurlimann: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Sareh Moosavi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing. Geoffrey R. Browne: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by a Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning Strategic Research Initiative Grant 2018-2019 at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

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