Adapting to climate change

Livable Houston Initiative

Wendy Natt, Mar 25, 09.

Tagged with environment, houston, climate change, planning, video

UPDATE (8/01/09, 9:50 am): Video added below.

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In November 2007, the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) assembled a panel of experts on climate change and infrastructure planning “to develop recommendations for local governments to adapt to potential changes in the region’s climate and associated environmental effects.” The H-GAC Board of Directors requested that the panel not address the validity of climate change models or assess the contributions of human activity to climate change, but, rather, “to recommend sound strategies for local governments to adapt to the potential effects of climate change should it occur.”

These recommendations formed the basis of a document, “Foresight Panel on Environmental Effects Report (pdf 14MB),” that the panel prepared for the H-GAC Board. The report findings and recommendations were the main subject of a March 25, 2009 Livable Houston Initiative meeting, led by Jeff Taebel, Director of Community and Environmental Planning at H-GAC, and hosted by Houston Tomorrow.

Houston Tomorrow’s David Crossley introduced the discussion by stating results from a 2008 Houston Area Survey, which indicate that over 80% of Harris County residents think that global warming is a “somewhat serious” or “very serious” problem.

Jeff Taebel noted that, despite apparent public sentiment on this issue, the process of getting the “Environmental Effects” report approved by the H-GAC Board was a difficult and highly contested process. Panelists and H-GAC staff who participated in the project were not to approach climate change as an existing and real condition, but as a hypothetical possibility: “If” climate change effects were to occur in the Houston-Galveston region, what would they be, and what would be the consequences?

In order to develop climate change adaptation strategies relevant to effects in the Houston-Galveston region, the panel chose to use the US Department of Transportation’s Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure: Gulf Coast Study, Phase I (pdf 10MB), whose models predict the following range of possible effects by the year 2100:

-An increase in average annual temperature of 2-7 degrees Fahrenheit
-A rise in sea level of 2-5 feet
-Increased intensity/frequency of extreme weather events
-Similar precipitation levels, but with more intense storms and longer dry periods

Based on these projections, the Foresight Panel considered a range of climate effects on coastal and inland populations in the region and listed a large number of recommendations aimed at cities and counties. Recommendations included forming mutual aid agreements between communities, plans for water and energy conservation, and efforts at stormwater retention and heat island mitigation.

The panel also addressed municipal/county policies for future growth, with recommendations to reevaluate building codes in high-risk areas, preserve existing green infrastructure, establish green building standards, develop compact, livable communities, and assess priorities and strategies for reinvestment, recovery, and reconstruction following potential climate change-related disasters.

Mike Talbott with the Harris County Flood Control District, and one of the Foresight Panel members, remarked that the H-GAC project was an illuminating exercise because it allowed participants to look at a particular range of effects and consider the vulnerability and adaptability of different areas in the region. Flooding issues from sea level rise and storm surges, for example, are far more severe on the coast, and very different from the inland impacts, he said.

Professor Peter Bishop, also a panel member and Coordinator of the graduate program in Future Studies at the University of Houston, suggested that the usefulness and impact of this work would be greater if it presented “contingency plans” to policy leaders for different probability scenarios like severe drought.

“Climate is unpredictable,” and it’s “difficult to get ourselves to plan and prepare for these possible effects,” said Bob Randall, urban gardener and former executive director of Urban Harvest. He commended the panelists and H-GAC in their “brave effort” to plan for greater climate unpredictability.

Jeff Taebel noted that in the course of their work it became clear that this is a “public policy project,” and that a good first step for all concerned people in the region is to contact their elected representatives at the city, county, and state level and let them know that climate change is a major issue to them.

May Akrawi, an audience member from the British Consulate in Houston, congratulated the panel’s accomplishment and emphasized that adaptation is critical to planning for and dealing with the impacts of climate change - something extensive climate model research in the UK has shown. She said that adapation strategies must be a major component to any plan, because mitigation efforts will not be effective on their own. She noted that the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections, on which many current climate plans are based, are now known to be conservative. (When the IPCC report was first released last year, its data showed climate change effects occurring far more rapidly than previously accepted projections.)

Jay Crossley of Houston Tomorrow asked Mike Talbott what effect this report - and new ways of thinking about climate change - could have on the way city officials and planners look at this issue, with the hope that it might be a “catalyst” that our municipalities could latch onto.

Talbott replied that he sees the most hope for change in the new talent coming into business, engineering, and planning with the next generation of young professionals, and that old ideas will eventually be replaced by new ways of thinking.