24
BRACING
for Cimate Change
Local governments must develop climate adaptation strategies to cope with unavoidable climate change. Is your community prepared?
BY MISSY STULTS, ICLEI ADAPTATION MANAGER
W
hen a fast-moving hur- ricane threatens to crash into Miami, everybody knows what to do.
“We’re a community that is well
versed in dealing with disaster,” says Susanne Torriente, Director of the Of- fice of Sustainability in Miami-Dade County, FL. “We track [the hurricane], we hunker down, and then we come out and recover. We’re national leaders in emergency management.” But these days Torriente must help prepare her community for a different sort of natural disaster that advances in slow motion: climate change. Rising global temperatures will have
a major impact on South Florida and lo- cal communities around the world. For example, rising sea levels may gradu- ally encroach upon Miami’s glamorous beachfront property and cause saltwater
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to creep in and contaminate the aquifers that supply water to two million Florid- ians. In Chicago, more frequent summer heat waves could overwhelm seniors and those without air conditioning. The best available science says
these scenarios are highly likely, which means local governments need to begin planning for them now. And ICLEI is lead- ing the efforts to help them do it.
THE CASE FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION
Most local governments addressing cli- mate change are tackling mitigation— reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for climate change. But even if we could halt all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, climate impacts would still occur because of the natural
momentum of the climate system. Smart planning efforts must integrate mitiga- tion and adaptation, and must happen at all levels of government—local, state, and federal. Climate adaptation is centered on
initiatives that reduce the vulnerability of natural, social, built, and human sys- tems against actual or expected climate change impacts. What those measures or initiatives are depend on local cir- cumstances and locally/regionally spe- cific changes in climate. Some commu- nities may focus on building sea walls to protect coastal assets, others may pre- pare their infrastructure for more severe floods or their community members for droughts and heat waves. Many strate- gies can, in fact, address both mitigation and adaptation. “Preparedness is about maintain- ing quality of life and maintaining fiscal
PLANET EARTH \\ CLIMATE ADAPTATION
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