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Strategic environmental assessment and climate change

Strategic environmental assessment and climate change. UNECE 63 rd session: Future directions Geneva, 30 March 2009 Elizabeth Wilson, Oxford Brookes University ebwilson@brookes.a.uk. Key points. Climate change requires action on mitigation (reduction) and adaptation

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Strategic environmental assessment and climate change

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  1. School of the Built Environment Strategic environmental assessment and climate change UNECE 63rd session: Future directions Geneva, 30 March 2009 Elizabeth Wilson, Oxford Brookes University ebwilson@brookes.a.uk

  2. Key points • Climate change requires action on mitigation (reduction) and adaptation • But - problems with integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation • Strategic environmental assessment an effective tool: anticipatory, preventive & integrative • Possible improvements • Recommendations to UNECE for action School of the Built Environment

  3. There is no quality in human nature, which causes more fatal errors in our conduct, than that which leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote A Treatise of Human Nature Part II S. vii David Hume Scotland 1739-40 School of the Built Environment

  4. Climate change • Climate change is happening and will continue (IPCC 4th Assessment; Stern Review) • Mitigation (reduction) & adaptation essential • But – actions are decided in isolation • Result: conflicts & negative feedback; synergistic opportunities missed For example: bio-fuels damage food production; some wind & hydro-power damages biodiversity; carbon trading out-sourcing/off-shoring? • So - co-ordinate mitigation & adaptation, to promote synergies & avoid conflicts School of the Built Environment

  5. Pan-European heat-wave events:mitigation & adaptation responses • Heat-wave (canicule) of summer 2003 • Heat stress impacts • Planned & autonomous responses: Urban greening + + Mechanical air-conditioning - - Urban extensification - + • Increasing frequency in future • Impact on migration…. School of the Built Environment

  6. Strategic integrative environmental assessment of climate change actions • Strategic: up-stream; longer horizon, more integrative • Strategic environmental assessment can systematically address climate change - impact of climate change on policy/plan - impact of policy/plan on climate change • UNECE has Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment • Possible improvements to facilitate the integrated assessment of mitigation and adaptation School of the Built Environment

  7. Possible improvements 1 • Widen scope of environmental assessment (eg health, social & eco-system impacts) • Think strategically – not formulaically • Use current guidance (eg OECD) creatively • Systematically assess interactions (eg through consistency analysis) • Use foresight and scenarios: extend time-horizons do not assume business-as-usual School of the Built Environment

  8. Possible improvements 2 • Overcome disciplinary silos (mitigation tends to be technocratic & target-driven; adaptation more community-based) • Integrate across scales (mitigation tends to be global & national-scale, adaptation more local & community) • Seek synergistic opportunities and avoid lose-lose options • Recognise political reality: hard to acknowledge the need to adapt, given the efforts in negotiations for mitigation School of the Built Environment

  9. Recommendations to UNECE:principles and practice • UNECE to develop role as lead agency for integration of mitigation & adaptation • Use and develop current tools (such as Strategic Environmental Assessment) with foresight, integration of scales and disciplines, and a broadened horizon • States should ratify & implement UNECE Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment School of the Built Environment

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