Washington, D.C. — The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) released a new report today highlighting the innovative measures local governments are beginning to implement to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.     Developed by CCAP’s Urban Leaders Adaption Initiative, the report, “Ask the Climate Question: Adapting to Climate Change Impacts in Urban Regions,” offers best practices for how cities and counties throughout the country should be thinking about the actions and strategies that can reduce their communities’ vulnerability to the dangers of a changing climate.

Many of the best practices in climate adaptation that are included in the report stem from CCAP encouraging its Urban Leaders partners to Ask the Climate Question: How will planning, policy, funding, infrastructure and land development decisions affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and local vulnerability or resilience to the impacts of climate change?
   
“One of the first and often surprising answers to the Climate Question is ‘we’re doing it already’,” said Josh Foster, manager of climate adaptation at CCAP. “CCAP Urban Leaders partners are finding they already have much of the relevant experience and skills needed to plan for and respond to climate change impacts through their experience in hazard mitigation, flood management, water conservation and land use planning.  In addition, Urban Leaders partners are establishing best practices in climate change adaptation and risk management.”
 
The report focuses on ten major urban areas that have already started to prioritize policies and investments in adapting to current and future climate change.  For example, the City of Los Angeles has recognized the necessity of adaptation and incorporated a climate and sustainability-focused checklist for their city’s project procurement process.  In King County, Wash., local officials have invested in infrastructure that will help the county meet its future water supply needs despite a decreasing snowpack.  This provides the municipality with “climate insurance” against future costs.  Finally, in Chicago, the city has already conducted a detailed evaluation of the potential economic impacts of climate change in an effort to help identify the areas that pose the greatest risks to the city.  This information will be used to help government leaders prioritize adaptation measures.

“It is absolutely critical that cities, both in the developed world and the developing world, begin to recognize the importance of investing in adaptation,” said Maria Blair, Associate Vice President and Managing Director for the Rockefeller Foundation.  “Encouragingly, CCAP’s report tells us that major cities are now beginning to consider adaption when they think about policy and investment decisions.  Adapting to current and future climate change is one of the most important challenges of our time, and this new report shows that there is much to learn from the foundation that these local leaders have started.”

“Dealing with climate change is a question of economic competitiveness and of equity,” said Ron Sims, former King County Executive and Urban Leaders charter partner (and current Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development). “It is imperative that we ensure a high quality of life for everyone across the world, as well as our future generations.”

While many opportunities for change exist for local governments to advance adaptation efforts, the CCAP Urban Leaders partners also need support from the federal government on risk assessment, adaptation planning and implementation.  CCAP recommends that the federal government take the following stops to help advance local climate adaptation efforts:

• Improve climate science and modeling, including regional downscaling;
• Support local adaptation by creating climate extension service networks to provide local governments with technical assistance on implementation of adaptation solutions;
• Expand programs that encourage proactive, pre-disaster adaptation, such as FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant program; and
• Facilitate dialogues among cities, counties and states to share best practices in adaptation planning and implementation.
  
  
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