Innovation and Climate Action Planning: Perspectives From Municipal Plans

Abstract

Problem: Cities play a fundamental role in the production of greenhouse gases and, as a result, are places where proactive mitigation and adaptation can occur. While increasing numbers of municipalities have revised or developed climate action plans (CAPs), our understanding of the impetus to plan for the climate challenge, processes for creating climate plans, and their resultant form remains limited. Purpose: We analyzed municipal CAPs to understand both their processes and their products, including the extent to which they represent innovation in planning. We ask the following questions: 1) Why do localities decide to undertake climate action planning, and what are the plans’ chief drivers and obstacles? 2) How have localities structured their climate action planning processes? 3) How frequently are particular types of actions included in local CAPs, and how do localities determine which to adopt? Methods: We read and evaluated the content of 20 CAPs from municipalities of a range of sizes and locations using a scoring matrix, reconciling coding differences. We also interviewed 16 individuals associated with 15 of the plans and coded notes from these interviews to identify themes relevant to the processes of plan development. Results and conclusions: There is great diversity in what constitutes a CAP. Some plans are motivational documents, while others are extremely detailed implementation plans with concrete goals, clear objectives, and well-reasoned methods. The decision to prepare a CAP reflects the existence of local political will and leadership, which also influences the planning processes used, the form of the resultant plan, and the actions it identifies. We found CAPs to rely heavily on well-known land use and transportation solutions to the climate challenge such as enhanced transit, compact community design, and green building codes, to be implemented both by local government and the broader community. Informants reported that their CAPs favored actions that were highly visible (e.g., tree planting) or produced immediate results (e.g., energy or cost savings from weatherization). Takeaway for practice: The CAPs we studied were special-purpose plans, and planning departments and planning commissions were not central to plan development in the majority of cases reviewed here. We advise professional planners to involve themselves more in CAP processes. Research support: We obtained funding for this project through a faculty enhancement grant from Portland State University.