Navigating the Politics of Climate Planning

Certification Maintenance

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Learning Outcomes

• Learn how to communicate the benefits of climate action to different audiences, from most affected communities to policymakers on both sides of the aisle.
• Understand transferable planning methods and lessons learned from resilience- and climate-planning processes that built broad-based coalitions and consensus to ensure successful implementation within challenging political environments.
• Find out how planners can collaborate with scientists to improve methods for making decisions about climate action and resilience.

More Course Details

Louisiana, Texas, and Florida are on the front lines of climate change impacts and national efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Diverging politics, multiple interests, and diverse demographics intensify the challenge of building broad-based support for ambitious, equitable climate action and resilience planning. Successes offer a roadmap for planners in other communities seeking to advance equitable climate action.

Panelists share planning methods and transferable lessons from three climate-action and resilience-planning processes that successfully navigated complex political territory:

• The Louisiana Climate Initiatives Task Force is a structured framework to fairly and transparently weigh trade-offs between industry and climate-justice priorities. It used a public process to develop a plan for Net Zero by 2050 that maximizes benefits to communities, the economy, and the environment;
• The Resilient Houston strategy advanced implementation of 92 percent of actions identified in the plan. It institutionalized resilience and equity in city practices by building broad support and collaboration among city departments and with community organizations and partners; and
• Jacksonville's resilience planning is underway by the city's first chief resilience officer, who was appointed by a Republican mayor.

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