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Greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation to climate change vulnerabilities should be incorporated into existing utility business and project management processes. A comprehensive climate action plan can meet and exceed legal requirements, reduce risk, achieve business process efficiencies, apply best available science, and demonstrate social responsibility. Focused internal workgroups, expert consultation, inspired management, feedback loops, breadth of application, and quantitative detail are critical to success.

ABSTRACTAir quality can be affected by weather and thus is sensitive to a changing climate. Wildfire (influenced by weather), consecutive high temperature summer days, and other extreme events are projected to become more severe and frequent with climate change. These may create challenging conditions for managing air quality despite policy targets to reduce precursor and pollutant emissions. Although extreme events are becoming more intense and interest in climate adaptation is increasing among public health practitioners, little attention in scholarly literature and policy covers climate adaptation for air quality governance. Understanding the management and managers’ perspectives at the local level provides insight about the needs for climate adaptation, including their adaptation status, perspectives, responsibilities, and roles. This study explores local manager perspectives and experiences of managing air quality within a changing climate as one puzzle piece to understand the gap in climate adaptation within the air quality sector. A broader goal is to contribute to the discussion of developing a multi-jurisdictional vision for reducing the impacts of air quality in a changing climate. In 2016 local air quality district managers in California were invited to participate in an online survey of 39 questions focused on extreme event impacts on air quality. The questionnaire focused on present air quality threats and extreme event challenges, adaptation status and strategies, adaptive capacities, perceived barriers to adaptation, and jurisdictional responsibilities and roles. Over 85 percent of the 35 local air districts in California participated in the survey, which represents 80 percent of the state’s population. High awareness and knowledge of climate change among local managers indicates they are ready to adopt and take action on policies that would support climate adaptation, but barriers reported suggests they may need policies and adequate funding to take action and make necessary changes.Implications: Downscaled global climate models project an increasing severity and frequency of extreme events. In the southwestern United States, these include wildfire, heat events, and dry periods, among others, all of which can place an extra burden on air quality managers and emitters to achieve air quality standards even as they reduce emissions. Despite climate change presenting increasing challenges to meet air quality standards, in the southwestern United States, policy and action to mitigate these impacts have been surprisingly absent. California presents a valuable case study on the topic because of its historic leadership in air quality management for the United States and also because of its initiatives in combating climate change. Yet still we found that adaptation has not been incorporated into air quality management thus far, but local managers seem sufficiently knowledgeable and willing.

Ocean acidification is a global, long-term problem whose ultimate solution requires carbon dioxide reduction at a scope and scale that will take decades to accomplish successfully. Until that is achieved, feasible and locally relevant adaptation and mitigation measures are needed. To help to prioritize societal responses to ocean acidification, we present a spatially explicit, multidisciplinary vulnerability analysis of coastal human communities in the United States. We focus our analysis on shelled mollusc harvests, which are likely to be harmed by ocean acidification. Our results highlight US regions most vulnerable to ocean acidification (and why), important knowledge and information gaps, and opportunities to adapt through local actions. The research illustrates the benefits of integrating natural and social sciences to identify actions and other opportunities while policy, stakeholders and scientists are still in relatively early stages of developing research plans and responses to ocean acidification.

Abstract: Interest in adaptation among local and state governments in the USA is on a steep incline since about 2007. Yet, place-specific vulnerability and adaptation research in the USA is still sparse, the public in many regions is still skeptical about the reality of climate change, and model adaptation planning processes are not well-known among practitioners. Against this backdrop of growing interest in adaptation, there is a great need to chronicle and critically assess emerging adaptation planning processes to learn broader lessons and share them widely both in the science and in the practice communities. This paper describes and critically evaluates a pilot project tested in two California local communities—San Luis Obispo and Fresno Counties—to illustrate how active engagement of local government and other stakeholders with experts can advance adaptation planning. The approach taken in this project proved to be an effective “conversation opener” in communities not previously engaged in adaptation planning or where political support to address climate change is low. It created a sense of expectation and accountability among local leaders and stakeholders. It also gave local leaders a chance to take ownership of the process and of the issue; it succeeded in raising interest in adaptation planning and increasing understanding of adaptation and that it is needed as much as mitigation. It helped develop an initial set of adaptation strategies for key climate-sensitive sectors, but to be taken up into ongoing policy processes and implemented by localities, requires state and federal funding.