Planning for Sustainability

I found two articles that are great for this week's assignment. The first one presents how planning, as done in the states of America, affects all of us. The second one presents the dilemma local public employees face.


Copyright & Photo Credits © ICLEI 1995-2008. All rights reserved.

http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=1487&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3759&tx_ttnews[backPid]=983&cHash=b3d08ea505

Lessons from floods in Fargo; April 09, 2009

Rebecca Carter, PhD, ICLEI USA Adaptation Manager analyzed the events that lead for the need for the residents of Fargo, ND, to be called to worked together to save their city from the floodwaters of the Red River. Their efforts seem to have paid off and the river appears to have crested below the level of the sandbag levees they constructed. It must be noted that things could have resulted badly, and events could have resulted as bad as what occurred in 1997.

Lessons learned from 1997.

Grand Forks of 2009 had infrastructure to protect it, and Fargo of 1997 did not.
“After incurring $1.5 billion in losses to hundreds of homes and businesses in 1997, Grand Forks was able to raise $409 million, half of it in federal funds, for a floodwall and water-diversion system to permanently protect it from the recurrent flooding that had plagued the city since it was founded. [1]“ According to Mrs. Carter, in 2007, FEMA certified that Grand Forks’ new levee system was complete and ready to protect the city from floods of up to 60 feet—nine feet higher than the crest during the 1997 flood, and well below this year’s [2].

What does this say of national planning?

The idea that nothing gets done until some catastrophic event happens if of great personal concern. The article read states that we should consider a 2008 study from the University of Maryland found that although global climate models predict that “North Dakota will become drier in the future and subject to more intense droughts, it is also expected to experience more intense storms. Given the Red River’s history of flooding, land use changes such as expanding agriculture into wetlands that once might have absorbed flood waters, and more severe weather predictions, there is little doubt that Fargo will face a similar—or worse—flood threat in the years to come [3].” Other communities also face increasing vulnerabilities to climate change as sea levels begin to rise, wildfires become more frequent and intense, and new public health risks such as extreme heat events increase.

What this illustrates is the need for a “more proactive approach to funding infrastructure to reduce community vulnerabilities due to climate change. Local governments can’t wait until the impacts descend on them—they must anticipate them, plan accordingly, and obtain buy-in from their community members for bold actions. There is, of course, a rush of stimulus spending on infrastructure projects nationwide, but how much allocation is happening with local climate resiliency in mind? [4]” As stated by Wheeler when a study was made on the general plans or other local planning documents, “sustainability planning is in its early stages, and that consensus or political backing has not yet emerged for the most meaningful changes.” (Wheeler; pg. 179)

We are still in the reactive (not proactive) mode.

Note: ICLEI USA’s Climate Resilient Communities™ Program will assist local governments in enhancing their resiliency to the impacts and costs associated with projected climate change. When this program launches later in 2009, it will provide local governments with the guidance, tools, and resources to assess vulnerabilities, establish targets and goals, and plan and take action.

References:

[1] http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=1487&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3759&tx_ttnews[backPid]=983&cHash=b3d08ea505

[2] [4] Rebecca Carter, PhD, ICLEI USA Adaptation Manager

[3] University of Maryland 2008 study on North Dakota’s Red River


http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=1487&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3710&tx_ttnews[backPid]=983&cHash=080efd3eef

Cities commit to reducing their carbon footprint by consuming sustainably

The seventh EcoProcura Conference which occurred in Reykjavik (Iceland) from the 25-27 March 2009 was a conference held for public authority delegates from 41 nations who pledged to use their economic purchasing power to help fight climate change. The desire is to boost the market for climate friendly products and services. EcoProcura participating nations also concluded in their closing arguments for all national governments to put on the national/international agenda: global climate. Global climate is to be the central discussion of the Copenhagen conference, scheduled to happen later this year.

The end results of this conference are listed below:

• Using sustainable purchasing as a sound basis for a sound future: renewed commitment to more responsible purchasing practices will make it easier for its public authorities and businesses to tap into the opportunities offered from increased savings, not only of greenhouse gas emissions, but also from savings in local energy bills from reduced consumption

• Over 220 representatives from local governments, national governments and other public sector bodies discussed for three days how sustainable public purchasing practices can make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation

• Official signing of a new Icelandic Sustainable Procurement National Action Plan by the Ministers of the Environment and Finance
Delegates were called to “think globally and act locally”, which, according to Iceland’s Environment Minister, Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, “is the mantra that will lead us to a more sustainable society”.

One of the challenges that may not allow for all the issues discussed in EcoProcura occur is that the “[C]hanging the way procurement is practiced by public bodies poses a challenge particularly because the bottom line for any city is to save money “– this is only one of the key issues debated extensively in Reykjavik. This last sentence represents an item discussed by Wheeler “[A]lthough the challenges of sustainable development seem overwhelming at times,,,,, it is indeed possible to plan for a better future” (Wheeler; pg. 235). The desire to implement a better way of purchasing public resources shows the need to “[A]t least some of these structural conditions (social norms and the power of economic institutions) will need to change for social and political values to change. Or perhaps, if we are lucky, both inner and outer changes will happen at the same time, in response to stimuli that we can as yet only dimly see.” (Wheeler; pg. 235)