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Climate disruption today and anticipated future climate breakdown are reshaping demographic and spatial processes, with profound consequences for societies across the globe. Specifically, migration can become a key strategy to attempt to respond to and cope with environmental change. This paper seeks to make sense of one type of migration, counterurbanisation, in this climate breakdown era. It provides conceptual clarity to what is termed 'climate-related counterurbanisation' vis-à-vis wider climate-induced migration and positions climate disruption within the counterurbanisation literature. Climate-related counterurbanisation is presented as a largely voluntary movement down the settlement hierarchy as a direct or indirect response to climate change, with positive representations of 'rurality' central to the relocation decision: individual adaptation. However, it is mediated by numerous geographically variegated and specific environmental, cultural, social and economic factors. Indeed, it may ultimately come to be seen more as maladaptation than adaptation. While moving from urban to rural may make sense at individual household level, such relocations can overall have much more negative impacts on host rural communities or the urban people left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is a growing awareness that both adaptation and mitigation measures are needed to reduce the impacts of climate change. Historically, due to a wide variety of reasons, mitigation and adaptation have been framed by scientists and policy makers as two different approaches to deal with the same problem: climate change. As a result, there are large differences in the way knowledge is produced, the analytical approaches that are used, and the designed policy strategies. This paper discusses the origin of the adaptation–mitigation dichotomy. Second, the paper addresses the relationship between climate change responses and spatial planning since there is a growing awareness that spatial planning can function as a switchboard for mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development objectives. Furthermore, the paper explores the role that spatial planning can play in developing effective mitigation and adaptation options in an integrated manner, searching for synergies and trade-offs. This creates the necessity to take climate change responses into account in spatial planning practices. We argue that climate change could also lead to changes in the traditional administrative structures that spatial planners are accustomed to. Since many of the main impacts of climate change have a water dimension, we discuss the river basin approach as the new administrative level at which spatial planning can increase the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation measures and integrate these into other sustainable development policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Issues related to sustainable urbanisation are best addressed when coordinated within a strategic framework and facilitated by a system of policy formulation that combines local opinions with scientific insights. This implies that planning for sustainable urbanisation has the potential to minimise climate change threats. While there is a pressing need for this potential to be realised globally, the current level of success in fast growing cities of the developing world is very limited. An approach to overcome this limitation has recently been successful in Dhaka, one of the fastest growing global megacities. It involved the identification of a strategic framework for the city. This framework was then combined with a locally-informed model of sustainable urbanisation to produce the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Planning Support System (DMDPSS). This paper discusses the climate change adaptation and mitigation issues that can be addressed through such a method in Dhaka, using a scenario-based approach. Two alternative development options (constrained and unconstrained) are constructed and analysed. A common set of indicators are used: first to evaluate which alternative is more sustainable; and then the mitigation and adaptation issues addressed. Results show that the ‘constrained’ scenario, which includes a series of development limitations, is both more sustainable and can address more mitigation and adaptation issues than the other alternative. The scenario analysis, however, is only a part of the strategic framework needed for Dhaka. Indeed other factors, such as dissemination of facts and issues, and the ease and equity of communication in the community, are critical both for progress towards sustainability and to enhance community resilience to climate change. The paper concludes that the optimum combination of adaptation and mitigation measures can be identified in fast growing cities by using systems, such as the DMDPSS, based on the core principles of sustainable development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Local government represents a key opportunity for implementing local adaptation to the impacts of climate change. The need for adaptation is most urgent in developing countries, yet most research has focused on the barriers to climate change mainstreaming in municipalities of the global North. This paper presents the results of a study that investigated barriers to action on climate change adaptation in eight municipalities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Forty-seven municipal actors (officials and councillors) were interviewed regarding the experience of their municipality with climate impacts and adaptive actions (focussing on ecosystem-based adaptation), as well as their knowledge and belief on climate change and adaptation issues. Results show that multiple barriers affect the ability of municipalities to mainstream adaptation issues, from individual-level barriers (such as a lack of understanding of climate change and adaptation options) to regulatory/institutional barriers (such as the problems posed by party politics) to socio-cultural barriers (such as a lack of interest within municipal constituencies for climate change issues). These numerous barriers are not significantly different to those encountered so far in municipalities of the developed world, suggesting that across the globe there are common problems that national and provincial governments need to address in order to mainstream climate change adaptation at the local level (such as changing planning and other laws by which local governments operate in order to recognise climate change impacts). Our research draws attention to a couple of under-researched issues, that of the effects of party politics and councillor qualifications on local government operation and performance, and suggests that much further research should address these topics in both developed and developing countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This work focuses on the efforts being made by King County, Washington to respond to the challenges of global climate change, concentrating on both mitigation and adaptation. King County is a leader in the United States in the development and implementation of meaningful climate change efforts in local government. The county, in conjunction with ICLEI, recently produced a workbook on Preparing for Climate Change at the Local, Regional, and State levels. While the vast majority of local governments in the United States have only taken limited steps to respond to global warming, King County stands out as aggressively looking to move in a new direction. The King County Climate Plan is based on the conviction that climate change is both a problem and an opportunity for communities to improve environmental quality through mitigation of greenhouse gases and simultaneously build resilience to adapt to global climate change. Its exceptional combination of responsibilities in planning and opportunities makes this an invaluable experience to other local governments throughout the world. The work to be presented is a case study that examines the underlying issues and challenges faced by this jurisdiction in adopting its climate change plan; the development and adoption of the plan; issues associated with monitoring and sustaining these efforts; and the broader challenges of building more resilient and adaptive communities. The case study will focus both on procedural issues, as well as, on the types of mitigation and adaptive responses. One aspect of the paper will examine King County''s efforts to link climate change efforts/policy/plans to other critical community concerns (e.g., issues of equity and race), and to the economic opportunities that have become critical motivators to successfully as moving forward the county attempts to establish itself as a global leader in meeting the challenges of global climate change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]