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Cities are gaining prominence committing to respond to the threat of climate change, e.g., by developing local climate plans or strategies. However, little is known regarding the approaches and processes of plan development and implementation, or the success and effectiveness of proposed measures. Mainstreaming is regarded as one approach associated with (implementation) success, but the extent of integration of local climate policies and plans in ongoing sectoral and/or development planning is unclear. This paper analyses 885 cities across the 28 European countries to create a first reference baseline on the degree of climate mainstreaming in local climate plans. This will help to compare the benefits of mainstreaming versus dedicated climate plans, looking at policy effectiveness and ultimately delivery of much needed climate change efforts at the city level. All core cities of the European Urban Audit sample were analyzed, and their local climate plans classified as dedicated or mainstreamed in other local policy initiatives. It was found that the degree of mainstreaming is low for mitigation (9% of reviewed cities; 12% of the identified plans) and somewhat higher for adaptation (10% of cities; 29% of plans). In particular horizontal mainstreaming is a major effort for local authorities; an effort that does not necessarily pay off in terms of success of action implementation. This study concludes that climate change issues in local municipalities are best tackled by either, developing a dedicated local climate plan in parallel to a mainstreamed plan or by subsequently developing first the dedicated and later a mainstreaming plan (joint or subsequent "dual track approach"). Cities that currently provide dedicated local climate plans (66% of cities for mitigation; 26% of cities for adaptation) may follow-up with a mainstreaming approach. This promises effective implementation of tangible climate actions as well as subsequent diffusion of climate issues into other local sector policies. The development of only broad sustainability or resilience strategies is seen as critical. • Trends in mainstreaming climate change issues were analyzed for 885 cities EU-28. • EU cities provide numerous local mitigation (#664) and/or adaptation (#321) plans. • Mainstreaming was investigated as vertical and horizontal approach. • 9% of cities have mainstreamed mitigation LCP; 12% of mitigation LCPs mainstreamed. • 10% of cities have mainstreamed adaptation LCP; 29% of adaptation LCPs mainstreamed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on disaster response frequently uses volunteered geographic information (VGI), due to its capability to provide near real-time information during and after a disaster. It is much less commonly used in spatial planning related to disaster management. However, VGI appears to have considerable potential for use in spatial planning and offers some advantages over traditional methods. For example, VGI can capture residents' preferences in a much faster, more timely, and more comprehensive fashion than is possible with, for example, questionnaires and surveys. This research investigates the usefulness of VGI for planning flood evacuation shelters. Using Jakarta, Indonesia, as a case study, we use VGI to capture the locations of flood evacuation shelters based on residents' preferences during flood periods in 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 and compare these with the locations of official shelters. Floods frequently affect Jakarta and the city administration uses VGI in flood emergency responses. Moreover, Jakarta has been identified as having the largest number of active Twitter users among cities worldwide. Thus, Jakarta is an appropriate place to study the use of VGI for planning evacuation shelters. VGI generated by Twitter users was used to identify the shelter locations preferred by Jakarta residents, and more precisely the flood evacuees. Of 171,046 tweets using keywords relating to flood evacuation, the content of 306 tweets indicated that they had been sent from inside or near evacuation shelters. The spatial pattern showed that those tweets were sent from 215 locations, mostly located near flooded areas. The analysis further showed that 35.6% of these shelter locations preferred by residents intersected with the locations of official evacuation shelters. As a general conclusion, our study demonstrates the advantages of using VGI for spatial planning, which mainly relates to the ease of capturing community preferences over a large area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, efforts are underway to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change impacts at the local level. However, there is a poor understanding of the relationship between city strategies on climate change mitigation and adaptation and the relevant policies at national and European level. This paper describes a comparative study and evaluation of cross-national policy. It reports the findings of studying the climate change strategies or plans from 200 European cities from Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. The study highlights the shared responsibility of global, European, national, regional and city policies. An interpretation and illustration of the influences from international and national networks and policy makers in stimulating the development of local strategies and actions is proposed. It was found that there is no archetypical way of planning for climate change, and multiple interests and motivations are inevitable. Our research warrants the need for a multi-scale approach to climate policy in the future, mainly ensuring sufficient capacity and resource to enable local authorities to plan and respond to their specific climate change agenda for maximising the management potentials for translating environmental challenges into opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas are pivotal to global adaptation and mitigation efforts. But how do cities actually perform in terms of climate change response? This study sheds light on the state of urban climate change adaptation and mitigation planning across Europe. Europe is an excellent test case given its advanced environmental policies and high urbanization. We performed a detailed analysis of 200 large and medium-sized cities across 11 European countries and analysed the cities' climate change adaptation and mitigation plans. We investigate the regional distribution of plans, adaptation and mitigation foci and the extent to which planned greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions contribute to national and international climate objectives. To our knowledge, it is the first study of its kind as it does not rely on self-assessment (questionnaires or social surveys). Our results show that 35 % of European cities studied have no dedicated mitigation plan and 72 % have no adaptation plan. No city has an adaptation plan without a mitigation plan. One quarter of the cities have both an adaptation and a mitigation plan and set quantitative GHG reduction targets, but those vary extensively in scope and ambition. Furthermore, we show that if the planned actions within cities are nationally representative the 11 countries investigated would achieve a 37 % reduction in GHG emissions by 2050, translating into a 27 % reduction in GHG emissions for the EU as a whole. However, the actions would often be insufficient to reach national targets and fall short of the 80 % reduction in GHG emissions recommended to avoid global mean temperature rising by 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are major drivers of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions--the sources of anthropocentric climate change, whilst also concentrating people, buildings, and infrastructures and therefore potential risk and impacts of the latter. As a consequence, planning for climate change in urban areas does not only provide the opportunity but should necessitate considering interactions between mitigation and adaptation actions. However, existing research found that only a minority of urban areas consider both mitigation and adaptation in their climate action plans, i.e. 147 Climate Change Action Plans (CCAPs) were identified among a representative sample of 885 European cities. We investigate these 147 CCAPs to understand the degree of integration of adaptation and mitigation and draw implications for the maximization of synergies and co-benefits of such a combined approach. Using the developed scoring framework to evaluate the level of integration of CCAPs, the research finds that most of the plans reveal a 'moderate' level of integration. Moderate integration characterizes a plan that identifies sources of emissions and vulnerabilities to climate change, as well as some qualitative consideration of the synergies, but one that lacks a systematic consideration of potential integration opportunities. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that one of the main gaps of the evaluation and implementation of more integrated climate change actions in cities is the insufficient quantitative evaluation of the costs and funding schemes for adaptation and mitigation action implementation. • Review and assessment of the level of integration of adaptation and mitigation in 147 EU urban climate change action plans. • Development and application of the Urban Climate Change Integration Index (UCCII). • Review and analysis of synergies and co-benefits of climate mitigation and adaptation actions. • Mitigation objectives are still more prominent than adaptation objectives in integrated urban climate change plans. • Discussion on capacity gaps and needs of local governments to understand, plan and implement integrated approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]