A manual for the preparation for action plans

 

Local Governments in Western Australia have been leaders in taking action to mitigate the impacts of climate change. More recently, many Local Governments have begun to develop climate change adaptation plans, both corporate plans to cover internal agency risks that climate change poses, and community wide plans. Most coastal Local Governments have developed, or are in the process of developing, coastal hazard risk management and adaptation plans (CHRMAPs), but these have a narrow focus solely on the coastal zone.

I have been working in the climate change adaptation field since 2006, helping Local Governments develop climate change adaptation plans, mostly for coastal adaptation planning, but also more broadly across all the risks, as Curtin University’s representative to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP), teaching Climate Change as a subject to undergraduate and post graduate students at Curtin University, and a member of the International Association for Impact Assessment’s special interest group of climate change.

I have produced the manual based on this experience to help guide Local Governments develop both corporate and community wide climate change adaptation plans that cover all the risks that global warming/heating and subsequent climate change pose. You can download the manual by clicking on the link below.

In summary, there manual has the following chapters:

  • Chapter 1 is an introduction;

  • Chapter 2 provides the basics of the greenhouse effect and the global heating (warming) physical process;

  • Chapter 3 sets out the evidence that the Earth is warming/heating and the climate is changing;

  • Chapter 4 describes the likely impacts of global heating/warming i.e. what will climate change look like?

  • Chapter 5 is aimed at officers preparing a climate change adaptation planning exercise within Council or the broader public. It describes a recommended broad framework for the process; and

  • Chapter 6 provides specific advice on carrying out a consultative climate change adaptation planning exercise aimed at developing a climate change adaptation action plan.

You can download a pdf copy by clicking here.