Today, planners have the opportunity and obligation to address the historic challenge of global climate change. The planning profession and the process of planning are uniquely suited to help communities make the changes needed to rise to this challenge and achieve the outcomes needed to create communities of lasting value. This Climate Change Policy Guide recommends a policy framework to assist communities in dealing with climate change and its implications. Success will require new policies and a bold new approach to planning.
The earth is getting warmer and it will continue to do so well into the future. The key question is how fast and how severe the impacts will be and whether we can adopt policies for mitigating against and adapting to these impacts. Climatologists reporting for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) see human activities as the major contributor to global warming and express growing fears that warming will accelerate in the coming years with potentially devastating impacts. In recent years, new conditions and certain extreme experiences have brought the issue of climate change into the forefront for planners, lawmakers and the public. We now have clear evidence of climate change leading to specific, measurable effects ranging from arctic melting and sea rise to heightened storm and drought severity. The earth’s temperature may have reached a tipping point where such changes accelerate even more rapidly than originally predicted. These conditions make it imperative than planners and policymakers work immediately to implement new policies to address climate change. Although scientists believe that the effects of human induced global warming cannot be eliminated because of the volume of greenhouse gases (GHG) already emitted into the atmosphere, the rate and volume of GHG emissions can be reduced lessening the dangerous impacts on ecosystems, communities and human health. The built environment is a primary contributor to climate change and GHG emissions. This makes planning central to any policy solution. Planners must play a key role in promoting energy efficiency in the existing built environment and changing development patterns, transportation systems, and regulations in ways that reduce GHG emissions. This policy guide provides planners, engaged citizens and elected officials with strategies to slow the pace of climate change and adapt to its impacts.
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