The Climate Planner is about overcoming the objections to climate change mitigation and adaption that urban planners face at a local level. It shows how to draft climate plans that encounter less resistance because they involve the public, stakeholders, and decisionmakers in a way that builds trust, creates consensus, and leads to implementation. Although focused on the local level, this book discusses climate basics such as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement of 2015, worldwide energy generation forecasts, and other items of global concern in order to familiarize urban planners and citizen planners with key concepts that they will need to know in order to be able to host climate conversations at the local level. The many case studies from around the United States of America show how communities have encountered pushback and bridged the implementation gap, the gap between plan and reality, thanks to a commitment to substantive public engagement. The book is written for urban planners, local activists, journalists, elected or appointed representatives, and the average citizen worried about climate breakdown and interested in working to reshape the built environment.

Climate change continues to impact our health and safety, the economy, and natural systems. With climate-related protections and programs under attack at the federal level, it is critical for cities to address climate impacts locally. Every day there are new examples of cities approaching the challenge of climate change in creative and innovative ways—from rethinking transportation, to greening city buildings, to protecting against sea-level rise. Climate Action Planning is designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop and implement plans to mitigate a community's greenhouse gas emissions and increase the resilience of communities against climate change impacts. This fully revised and expanded edition goes well beyond climate action plans to examine the mix of policy and planning instruments available to every community. Boswell, Greve, and Seale also look at process and communication: How does a community bring diverse voices to the table? What do recent examples and research tell us about successful communication strategies? Climate Action Planning brings in new examples of implemented projects to highlight what has worked and the challenges that remain. A completely new chapter on vulnerability assessment will help each community to identify their greatest risks and opportunities. Sections on land use and transportation have been expanded to reflect their growing contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The guidance in the book is put in context of international, national, and state mandates and goals. Climate Action Planning is the most comprehensive book on the state of the art, science, and practice of local climate action planning. It should be a first stop for any local government interested in addressing climate change.

Climate change is a global problem, but the problem begins locally. Cities consume 75% of the world's energy and emit 80% of the world's greenhouse gases. Changing the way we build and operate our cities can have major effects on greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, communities across the U.S. are responding to the climate change problem by making plans that assess their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and specify actions they will take to reduce these emissions. This is the first book designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop Climate Action Plans. CAPs are strategic plans that establish policies and programs for mitigating a community's greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. They typically focus on transportation, energy use, and solid waste, and often differentiate between community-wide actions and municipal agency actions. CAPs are usually based on GHG emissions inventories, which indentify the sources of emissions from the community and quantify the amounts. Additionally, many CAPs include a section addressing adaptation-how the community will respond to the impacts of climate change on the community, such as increased flooding, extended drought, or sea level rise. With examples drawn from actual plans, Local Climate Action Planning guides preparers of CAPs through the entire plan development process, identifying the key considerations and choices that must be made in order to assure that a plan is both workable and effective.

This resource provides authoritative guidance for spatial planners on how to meet the economic, social and environmental challenges that climate change raises for urban and regional development. It brings together some of the recent research and scholarly works on the role of spatial planning in combating climate change.

Spatial planning has a vital role to play in the move to a low carbon energy future and in adapting to climate change. To do this, spatial planning must develop and implement new approaches. Elizabeth Wilson and Jake Piper explore a wide range of issues in this comprehensive book on the relationship between our changing climate and spatial planning, and suggest ways of addressing the challenges by taking a longer-sighted approach to our preparation for the future. This text includes: an overview of what we know already about future climate change and its impacts, as we attempt both to adapt to these changes and to reduce the emissions which cause them the role of spatial planning in relation to climate change, offering some theoretical and political explanations for the challenges that planning faces in the coming decades a review of policy and legislation at international, EU and UK levels in regard to climate change, and the support this gives to the planning system case studies detailing what responses the UK and the Netherlands have made so far in light of the evidence ways to help new and existing urban developments to reduce energy use and to adapt to climate change, through strengthening the relationships between urban and rural areas to avoid water shortage, floods or loss of biodiversity. The authors take an evidence-based look at this hugely important topic, providing a well-illustrated text for spatial planning professionals, politicians and the interested public, as well as a useful reference for postgraduate planning, geography, urban studies, urban design and environmental studies students.

Natural disasters from heat waves to coastal and river flooding will inevitably become worse because of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Managing them is possible, but planners, designers, and policymakers need to advance adaptation and preventative measures now. Managing the Climate Crisis: Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought and Wildfire by design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw is a practical guide to addressing this urgent national security problem. Barnett and Bouw draw from the latest scientific findings and include many recent, real-world examples to illustrate how to manage seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages.

"Reviews the relationship between urban planning and GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions as a key component of climate change, provides characteristics of GHG decision support tools, and evaluates the strengths and limitations of a cross section of existing tools using those characteristics." - page ii.