Local, State and Federal Government legislative requirements

Strategic planning actions: Incorporating climate change considerations in the Municipal Health and Wellbeing Plans and other strategic and urban planning documents.

Operational actions: Setting up municipal emergency management planning and fire committees, employing Municipal Emergency Resource and Fire Prevention Officers, allocating neighbourhood safer places, maintaining vegetation and clearance of space around power lines.

Rotterdam Climate Initiative (The Netherlands)

The Rotterdam Climate Initiative (RCI) is a permanent partnership of four parties; The City of Rotterdam, The Port of Rotterdam, Deltalinqs (representation of the corporate sector in Rotterdam) and the Environmental Protection Agency. The RCI is directed by a board that includes the Mayor of Rotterdam and industry executives. The strength of the RCI is that it combines key stakeholders into a single, permanent body with authoritative power and a political mandate. As a result, projects and plans put forward by the RCI receive widespread support and have sufficient resources for implementation.

City of Greater Geelong (Victoria)

Climate change impacts affect every internal division within Council. It is therefore essential that climate change impacts and responses are considered in an integrated manner. The City of Greater Geelong has identified a series of processes to support the implementation of its climate change adaptation plan:

Glenorchy City Council (Tasmania)

The Glenorchy City Council has identified education and awareness as a key component of their climate change adaptation plan. The plan focuses on internal and external engagement:

Via integrating education and awareness throughout the process of adaptation planning (and therefore into the implementation phases) Glenorchy City Council increases the opportunity for internal and external engagement, capacity building, collaboration and successful outcomes that meet a variety of stakeholders needs.

Gold Coast City Council and Tweed Shire (Queensland)

The Gold Coast City Council and Tweed Shire have developed a Sub-Plan. The Sub-Plan recognises that there can be a disconnect between emergency management arrangements between local government areas. The plan means to overcome these differences, should a disaster simultaneously impact both sides of the State border. In 2010 the Sub-Plan was incorporated into local disaster management plans of both Councils.

City of Cottesloe (Western Australia)

Cottesloe faces the prospect of increased coastal erosion from climate change. The Town of Cottesloe commissioned a climate change vulnerability assessment in order to prepare for the challenges climate change presents to managing and maintaining coastal resources and infrastructure. The Cottesloe Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Project identified the potential risks to existing key coastal infrastructure under a range of future climate scenarios and the options available to treat the risks. A list of key asset and service delivery areas was developed to ensure that the impacts from climate change were aligned to accountabilities within local government. The project combines international better practice with the Australian Government’s approach to climate change risk management as set out in the report, Climate change impact and risk management: A guide for business and government. In formulating an approach, a key consideration was the development of a set of methods and tools that could be readily used by coastal Local Governments throughout Australia.

City of Melbourne (Victoria)

The City of Melbourne (CoM) is one of the first councils in Australia to take a leading position in climate change adaptation. Since 2007 CoM has undertaken a comprehensive assessment of Melbourne’s future risks from climate change for timescales of 2010, 2030 and 2070. In order to identify interdependencies between key risks the CoM is using cascading consequence diagrams. These diagrams map the cascading nature of implications from a single climatic event or variable (e.g. drought causes insufficient water supply, which may then reduce water quality and subsequently cause an increase in health problems). It provides an appreciation of the relationships of event impacts and implications and can help identify factors that may cause cumulative impacts. In developing the consequence diagrams CoM looked at risks in the following areas: water, transport and mobility, buildings and property, social health and community, business and industry, energy and communications and emergency services sectors.

City of New York (United States of America)

With 578 miles of coastline shouldering residential, commercial and industrial neighbourhoods, the City of New York faces the threat from the rising sea-level and storm-related coastal flooding, as demonstrated by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. To allow for an adequate response the Council commissioned the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), to develop a plan and supporting tools on how to adapt New York City to a changing climate.

At the very centre of the plan is the notion that climate change adaptation strategies should be incorporated into the management plans of critical city infrastructure through a mechanism called Flexible Adaptation Pathways. This mechanism suggests that strategies can evolve through time as climate risk assessment, evaluation of adaptation strategies, and monitoring continue. In terms of resilient strategies, it was noted to introduce design standards that are recalibrated depending on the climate change projects, so that long-lasting infrastructure will be prepared to withstand future threats. Adaptive management was addressed by means of focussing on strategies for responding to incremental changes (e.g., annual temperature and precipitation changes) as well as low probability, high impact events (e.g., extreme coastal flooding exacerbated by sea level rise), and link investments to the level of risk at a relevant point in time (.e. phased strategies). NPCC incorporated scenario planning by establishing a climate change monitoring program to track and analyse key climate change factors, impacts and evolving-knowledge indicators, to gain understanding of the performance of options against changing conditions.

Ku-ring-gai Council (New South Wales)

Ku-ring-gai Council has developed a cost benefit assessment tool which ranks climate change risk on a local scale and establishes a means to determine the appropriate level and timing of responses. In the model, costs equal the impact to the Triple Bottom Line and benefits equal the ability of the adaptation to reduce hazard specific risks. Unlike many other analyses, each adaptation action is tested against a set of questions/criteria to address aspects of equity, natural resource conservation and true cost. The tool balances the considerations of natural environment, the economy and social and community considerations.

Salisbury City Council (South Australia)

The state of South Australia is experiencing increasing seasonal droughts. To secure a reliable water supply and manage flooding impacts, Salisbury City Council has been constructing wetlands as an integral part of storm water drainage systems. All new residential subdivisions in the last ten years have been required to install wetlands to contain storm water on site as much as possible. The strategy has resulted in greater flood control and harvesting of water for reuse and aquifer recharge. This example demonstrates how looking at interdependencies between climate events (heavy rain versus drought) helps trigger solutions. By considering alternate scenarios and responding in a holistic fashion, municipalities can be better prepared and are able to identify win-win adaptation options.

City of New York (United States of America)

The City of New York report “A stronger, more resilient New York” plan combines system-by-system thinking with geographical focused interventions of how to improve citywide infrastructure. The plan combines this with a strong public engagement processes. The analysis within the plan covers 11 key areas: coastal protection, built environment, insurance, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, transportation, water and wastewater, solid waste, food supply and parks. For each area the risks to extreme and gradual weather events are identified as well as tailored responses to address risks.

City of Mandurah (Western Australia)

In 2009, the City of Greater Mandurah launched its Coastal Zone Climate Change Risk Assessment and Adaptation Plan. The Report establishes a process for continuous monitoring, review and improvement of planned resilience activities. Council has committed to review the Plan at two levels:

In order to promote a mainstreamed approach to monitoring and review in Council, the adaptation plan includes a dedicated governance framework. Various Directorates across the City of Mandurah are held responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of the adaptation plan. In addition, there is a key role for a Climate Change Officer to collate updates, report on progress, and update adaptation actions as required. Furthermore, all staff with assigned actions across all departments are responsible for regularly updating the Adaptation Register (i.e. an overview of all pending and current adaptation actions), and forwarding updates to the Climate Change Officer.