ICLEI’s Climate Resilient Communities Program Addresses Adaptation, Vulnerabilities

Contact: Annie Strickler, ICLEI: (510) 844-0699 X328

Oakland, CA – ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability commends the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for addressing the current and predicted impacts of global warming and ways in which the world will adapt to those changes in its upcoming report, “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," which will be released Friday in Brussels, Belgium. In addition to working with cities to mitigate their carbon emissions to reduce global warming pollution, ICLEI has recently initiated a Climate Resilient Communities program to protect people, property and resources and help communities become more resilient to climate change.

“Through our Climate Resilient Communities work, we help local governments develop tools to assess their vulnerabilities and prepare their communities for the impacts and costs associated with predicted global climate change,” said Margit Hentschel, Director of ICLEI-USA’s Climate Resilient Communities program.

Certain areas in the U.S. will be, and already are in many cases, particularly susceptible to flooding, coastal erosion, drought, and intense hurricanes and wildfires. The adaptation approach of Climate Resilient Communities enables communities to integrate climate preparedness strategies into existing hazard mitigation plans, reduce the costs the costs associated with disaster relief, and prioritize vulnerabilities such as infrastructure, zoning, and water capacity.

ICLEI works with NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) offices to utilize the best climate science available for forecasting weather events.

"Scientific research is showing some of the emerging impacts of climate change that we are already experiencing. The question now is, how do we better calibrate our society’s interactions with the climate system given we are confident that further changes will occur?,” said Josh Foster, ICLEI-NOAA Climate Resilient Communities Project Manager. “The ICLEI-NOAA partnership is designed to help communities adapt to changes in climate. These adaptations will span from better preparations for variations in daily and seasonal weather extremes to improved planning for long-term changes in water supply or sea-level. Most importantly, however, the project will provide information and guidance to help communities to manage for and increase resilience to a range of interacting climate impacts occurring now and into the future."

Last year ICLEI, along with the Municipality of Anchorage, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Alaska Conservation Foundation, convened a meeting, “Strengthening Our Cities: Mayors Responding to Global Climate Change,” where 30 mayors from across the country saw the devastating impacts of climate change first-hand, from retreating glaciers to insect-infested forests. A video documenting the trip, “Climate of Change,” is available upon request. More information: www.akcf.org/_pages/release.doc

“Anchorage is a prime example of the challenges cities across the United States will be facing with climate change,” said Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. “Local governments clearly have a stake in the outcome, and it’s at the local level where the most significant efforts to address global climate change are underway. We need to take concrete steps now to make our communities more resilient to climate change, and we have a responsibility to put in place cost-saving, efficient strategies to reduce our emissions.”

Key preliminary partners in ICLEI’s Climate Resilient Communities effort include: Keene, New Hampshire; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and Anchorage, Alaska. Similar to ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection program which focuses on mitigation, participants in Climate Resilient Communities will engage in a Five Milestone process which includes: conduct a climate resiliency study; prioritize areas for action and set goals; develop a Climate Resilient Action Plan; implement the plan; monitor and reevaluate.

Keene was the first community to test this new program. The city has found that this type of planning closely parallels their ongoing global warming mitigation efforts and dovetails with comprehensive master planning.

“As a city, we’ve been able to start talking about climate change impacts that Keene will face in the future and how we can create a more resilient community that is able to capture opportunities while simultaneously protecting our unique community character,” said Mikaela Engert, Keene City Planner. “What has made this process even more remarkable is that we had every department head at the table – along with the Mayor, City Manager, and representatives from the college community and public health field. Ultimately, the work we’ve done with this program will help shape a much broader community conversation about sustainability.”