Towards Intergenerational Equity: Analysis of Youth Engagement Strategies in Climate Action Planning in Mzuzu, Malawi

Globally, meaningful youth participation in planning processes aimed at dealing with climate change impacts has been advocated for sustainability purposes. Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change requires parties to ensure there is public participation in addressing climate change, its effects, and the development of responses. In the city of Mzuzu, Malawi, local community members have been involved in planning processes at different planning levels but more intensively at the community level. Despite this approach receiving much attention, minimal consideration has been put on which societal groups are to be engaged directly, with youths being excluded to a large extent, even though about 49% of the population in Malawi is aged between 10 and 34 years. This article, therefore, seeks to foreground how current stakeholder engagement strategies in climate change planning marginalise the youth. To do this, this article critically reviews current stakeholder engagement strategies and assesses the extent to which youth are involved in the planning processes in Mzuzu City. It further assesses the factors affecting youth involvement in the planning process and subsequently recommends how stakeholder engagement strategies can be designed and implemented to ensure effective youth engagement in climate change planning processes in the city.

Download Full-text

Changing the Climate from the Streets of Oakland

Climate Change from the Streets ◽

10.12987/yale/9780300232158.003.0004 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 91-114

Author(s):

Michael Méndez

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Environmental Justice ◽

Public Participation ◽

Climate Policy ◽

Planning Process ◽

Action Planning ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Human Scale ◽

Climate Action ◽

The City

Focuses on the city scale, analyzing how climate change from the streets unfolds in the case of the Oakland, California climate action planning process. Provides an exemplar for featuring climate embodiment, the human scale of climate impacts, meaningful public participation, a focus on health co-benefits, and an explicit emphasis on environmental justice in the development of municipal climate policy.

Download Full-text

Understanding institutional barriers in the climate change adaptation planning process of the city of Beirut: vicious cycles and opportunities

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change ◽

10.1007/s11027-021-09961-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 26 (6) ◽

Author(s):

Leonardo Zea-Reyes ◽

Veronica Olivotto ◽

Sylvia I. Bergh

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Planning Process ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Data Bank ◽

Institutional Barriers ◽

Political Interference ◽

Poor Individual ◽

Competing Priorities

AbstractCities around the world are confronted with the need to put in place climate adaptation policies to protect citizens and properties from climate change impacts. This article applies components of the framework developed by Moser and Ekström (2010) onto empirical qualitative data to diagnose institutional barriers to climate change adaptation in the Municipality of Beirut, Lebanon. Our approach reveals the presence of two vicious cycles influencing each other. In the first cycle, the root cause barrier is major political interference generating competing priorities and poor individual interest in climate change. A second vicious cycle is derived from feedbacks caused by the first and leading to the absence of a dedicated department where sector specific climate risk information is gathered and shared with other departments, limited knowledge and scientific understanding, as well as a distorted framing or vision, where climate change is considered unrelated to other issues and is to be dealt with at higher levels of government. The article also highlights the need to analyze interlinkages between barriers in order to suggest how to overcome them. The most common way to overcome barriers according to interviewees is through national and international support followed by the creation of a data bank. These opportunities could be explored by national and international policy-makers to break the deadlock in Beirut.

Download Full-text

Exposure to Floods, Climate Change, and Poverty in Vietnam

10.5194/nhess-2017-100 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mook Bangalore ◽

Andrew Smith ◽

Ted Veldkamp

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

National Level ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Ho Chi Minh City ◽

Poor People ◽

Socioeconomic Conditions ◽

Socioeconomic Data ◽

The City ◽

Level Analysis

Abstract. With 70 percent of its population living in coastal areas and low-lying deltas, Vietnam is highly exposed to riverine and coastal flooding. This paper examines the exposure of the population and poor people in particular to current and future flooding in Vietnam and specifically in Ho Chi Minh City, using new high-resolution flood hazard maps and spatial socioeconomic data. The national-level analysis finds that a third of today’s population is already exposed to a flood, which occurs once every 25 years, assuming no protection. For the same return period flood under current socioeconomic conditions, climate change may increase the number exposed to 38 to 46 percent of the population. Climate change impacts can make frequent events as important as rare ones: the estimates suggest a 25-year flood under future conditions can expose more people than a 200-year flood under current conditions. Although poor districts are not found to be more exposed to floods at the national level, the city-level analysis of Ho Chi Minh City provides evidence that slum areas are highly exposed. The results of this paper show the benefits of investing today in flood risk management, and can provide guidance as to where future investments may be targeted.

Download Full-text

Dialectical Design Dialogues: Negotiating Ethics in Participatory Planning by Building a Critical Design Atlas

Urban Planning ◽

10.17645/up.v5i4.3294 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 238-251

Author(s):

Barbara Roosen ◽

Liesbeth Huybrechts ◽

Oswald Devisch ◽

Pieter Van den Broeck

Keyword(s):

Urban Planning ◽

Planning Process ◽

Daily Life ◽

Participatory Planning ◽

Dialectical Approach ◽

Urban Transformations ◽

Planning Processes ◽

Everyday Reality ◽

The City

This article explores ‘dialectical design dialogues’ as an approach to engage with ethics in everyday urban planning contexts. It starts from Paulo Freire’s pedagogical view (1970/2017), in which dialogues imply the establishment of a horizontal relation between professionals and amateurs, in order to understand, question and imagine things in everyday reality, in this case, urban transformations, applied to participatory planning and enriched through David Harvey’s (2000, 2009) dialectical approach. A dialectical approach to design dialogues acknowledges and renegotiates contrasts and convergences of ethical concerns specific to the reality of concrete daily life, rather than artificially presenting daily life as made of consensus or homogeneity. The article analyses an atlas as a tool to facilitate dialectical design dialogues in a case study of a low-density residential neighbourhood in the city of Genk, Belgium. It sees the production of the atlas as a collective endeavour during which planners, authorities and citizens reflect on possible futures starting from a confrontation of competing uses and perspectives of neighbourhood spaces. The article contributes to the state-of-the-art in participatory urban planning in two ways: (1) by reframing the theoretical discussion on ethics by arguing that not only the verbal discourses around designerly atlas techniques but also the techniques themselves can support urban planners in dealing more consciously with ethics (accountability, morality and authorship) throughout urban planning processes, (2) by offering a concrete practice-based example of producing an atlas that supports the participatory articulation and negotiation of dialectical inquiry of ethics through dialogues in a ‘real-time’ urban planning process.

Download Full-text

Integrating Sustainable Stormwater Management in Urban Planning: Ways Forward towards Institutional Change and Collaborative Action

Water ◽

10.3390/w12010203 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 203 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Anna Bohman ◽

Erik Glaas ◽

Martin Karlson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Planning ◽

Institutional Change ◽

Stormwater Management ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Urban Stormwater Management ◽

Collaborative Action ◽

Planning Processes ◽

Sustainable Stormwater Management ◽

New Strategies

Climate change impacts, ageing infrastructure and the increasing imperviousness of cities all raise enormous challenges to and call for new ways of planning for sustainable urban stormwater management. Especially, closer collaboration among a diverse set of actors involved has been pointed to as critical to enable the development of holistic and flexible approaches. However, the shift towards inclusive forms of planning has been slow, and characterized by technical and institutional lock-ins. Against this background, this study scrutinizes the challenges and developments perceived as central for improving stormwater planning, and analyzes how formal and informal institutional change could contribute to enhancing sustainability in this sector. Building on an analysis of data from workshops, interviews and a survey with Swedish planners and water managers, we suggest new strategies for integrating stormwater concerns into planning processes, overcoming silo structures, fostering cocreation cultures, and securing the continuation and implementation of stormwater management through various planning stages.

Download Full-text

Climate change vulnerability and adaptation in the managed Canadian boreal forest

Environmental Reviews ◽

10.1139/er-2013-0064 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 256-285 ◽

Cited By ~ 62

Author(s):

Sylvie Gauthier ◽

Pierre Bernier ◽

Philip J. Burton ◽

Jason Edwards ◽

Kendra Isaac ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Management ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Management System ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Managed Forests ◽

Safety And Health ◽

Planning Processes ◽

Canadian Boreal Forest ◽

Potential Climate Change

Climate change is affecting Canada’s boreal zone, which includes most of the country’s managed forests. The impacts of climate change in this zone are expected to be pervasive and will require adaptation of Canada’s forest management system. This paper reviews potential climate change adaptation actions and strategies for the forest management system, considering current and projected climate change impacts and their related vulnerabilities. These impacts and vulnerabilities include regional increases in disturbance rates, regional changes in forest productivity, increased variability in timber supply, decreased socioeconomic resilience, and increased severity of safety and health issues for forest communities. Potential climate change adaptation actions of the forest management system are categorized as those that reduce nonclimatic stressors, those that reduce sensitivity to climate change, or those that maintain or enhance adaptive capacity in the biophysical and human subsystems of the forest management system. Efficient adaptation of the forest management system will revolve around the inclusion of risk management in planning processes, the selection of robust, diversified, and no-regret adaptation actions, and the adoption of an adaptive management framework. Monitoring is highlighted as a no-regret action that is central to the implementation of adaptive forest management.

Download Full-text

Using the Administration to Update and Evaluate Urban Planning for Cities

Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education (TURCOMAT) ◽

10.17762/turcomat.v12i2.2082 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 2476-2481

Author(s):

Hadeel Mowafaaq Mahmood , Et. al.

Keyword(s):

Urban Development ◽

Planning Process ◽

Term Treatment ◽

Long Term Treatment ◽

Long Time ◽

Planning Processes ◽

The City

The planning process takes place to face a number of challenges and obstacles that address and continue for a long time to form a plan that includes the fundamental changes in society and keep pace with population and urban growth, and planning and the formation of blueprints is a basis to meet the needs of society, but the passage of time to configure it to keep pace with growth and the speed of increasing population and technical growth, it requires research studies Faster to configure a re-planning of plans and studies as an alternative to re-planning and supporting them with follow-up and continuous evaluation processes that are among the basic components of management operations, which is the solution to reduce problems and shortcomings and support for planning processes as a current and long-term treatment The role of management is important to support the planning process in the presence of evaluation and follow-up to meet the requirements of the city and its expansion Urban development and development, and looking forward to the most prominent concepts and ways that decision-makers take with techniques and methods that make the city and the services provided to it in the best image that makes the city with urban development and urban management represented by the countries.

Download Full-text

Ranking Climate Change Adaptation Options

10.20944/preprints202010.0479.v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Sinay ◽

Rodney William (Bill) Carter

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Planning Process ◽

Community Members ◽

Simple Process ◽

Academic Literature ◽

Planning Processes ◽

The Relationship ◽

Adaptation Options

Failure to adapt to climate change is currently considered one of the major threats affecting humanity. Hence, much effort is being put into discussing adaptation approaches. While many adaptation options have been identified, the academic literature does not present a simple process that local councils and community members can use to rank adaptation options. In this context, community members participating on planning processes are presented with many adaptation options, but with no objective approach for selection, which adds challenge to the planning process. With the objective of addressing this issue, this work proposes a simple equation that allows calculating the applicability level of adaptation options. Results can then be plotted into graphs that allow correlating adaptation options and applicability level, which can be easily understood by community members. To develop such equation, this work built on existing sophisticated models from where the indicators used on the equation were identified, as well as the relationship between them. A scale was proposed to help on identifying adaptation options that should be implemented on the short, medium and long term, and options that should only be implemented if the circumstance change.

Download Full-text

The CEP Crosswalk: A community energy planning tool for interdepartmental alignment and stakeholder engagement

Canadian Planning and Policy / Aménagement et politique au Canada ◽

10.24908/cpp-apc.v2021i2.13930 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 ◽

pp. 55-68

Author(s):

Cody Walter ◽

Michelle Adams ◽

Alexander L. MacDonald

Keyword(s):

Stakeholder Engagement ◽

Planning Process ◽

Social Benefits ◽

Energy Planning ◽

Planning Tool ◽

Policy Documents ◽

Support Tools ◽

Planning Processes ◽

Barriers To Implementation ◽

The Town

Community Energy Planning is a still-maturing practice that has great potential to help achieve climate goals, stimulate economic development, and realize health and social benefits. Community Energy Plans (CEPs) in Canada often encounter barriers to implementation that can be mitigated through use of decision support tools (QUEST, 2015). Planning tools are needed to help municipal staff improve the quality and quantity of stakeholder engagement during the CEP process, set priorities, and increase inter-departmental collaboration on climate and energy goals. In this paper, we present the Crosswalk Document, tool designed to support the Community Energy Planning process by identifying “points of contact” between the guiding policy documents of a given jurisdiction. We discuss the method used to construct the Crosswalk, and share insights from Community Energy practitioners at the Halifax Regional Municipality and the Town of Oakville who used it to the benefit their Community Energy Planning processes.

Download Full-text

Creating a climate of change in the City of Johannesburg: Co-learning to adapt to climate change

South African Journal of Science ◽

10.17159/sajs.2021/7929 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 117 (9/10) ◽

Author(s):

Coleen Vogel ◽

Mutizwa Mukute ◽

Kaera Coetzer ◽

Mzukisi Gwata

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South African ◽

Planning Process ◽

Multiple Stressors ◽

Local Context ◽

Trust Relationships ◽

Climate Change Responses ◽

Cultural Historical Activity ◽

Learning And Change ◽

The City

Climate change is one of the multiple stressors facing African cities; these cities are responding by developing climate change action plans including adaptation and mitigation policies. Effectively mainstreaming climate change in city plans and operations and moving from ambition to implementation is complex. Multi-actor engagement, transdisciplinary knowledge interactions, co-designing and sustained co-learning are often required in such planning and action contexts. In this paper, we trace and reflect on the process of developing an adaptation planning process for the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. Given shortcomings of the previous adaptation responses attempted in the City, specifically that of poor uptake, we trialled a more intentional and directly designed, formative and interventionist approach using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). We reflect on what we as a research team and City officials learnt in this process. Our findings emphasise that exploring the local context remains critical in understanding and surfacing tensions with potential climate change responses. Failure to be mindful of such issues will likely result in mere compliance, and potentially, maladaptation. Contrary to experiences in other South African settings, rather than attempting to engage all actors simultaneously, our experience suggests that working with a core group initially, before expanding the circle of actors, is needed. These actors serve as mediators and pivotal actors for learning and change, and, with appropriate authority and passion, can drive, coalesce, and potentially re-enthuse waning interest from within. They leverage already existing trust relationships and strengthen participation throughout the process. Combined, these factors are critical for ensuring implementation and legacy.

Download Full-text