EP10

Climate Change Policy and Land Development

Doug Crawford-Brown, Barbara Havel and Sophie Chapman

The module explores the relationship between climate policy, land development and the built environment, using both quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the impact of policies on climate mitigation and adaptation. Consideration is given to the role of land and its vegetation in climate change, the energy and carbon performance of buildings and infrastructure, rationality of climate policies, treatment of complex ownership and governance chains in asset management, trajectories of decarbonisation of the global economy, international and national policies and mechanisms, the macroeconomics of mitigation and adaptation, selection of policy instruments, and the role of community design in low carbon development and reduced vulnerability to climate change risks. Specific topics and methodologies covered are:

The role of land settlement patterns and uses in the carbon cycle and climate change
The sustainability performance of buildings and infrastructure at landscape scale
Rationality of public and private decisions and their framing of climate policies
Trajectories of decarbonisation of the global economy
International and national policies and mechanisms for climate change
Macroeconomics of mitigation and adaptation strategies
Selection of policy instruments for delivery of climate change mitigation and adaptation
The role of community design – including spatial relationships - in low carbon development
The role of natural services in reducing the vulnerability of communities to climate change risks
Climate change and sustainable development in developing nations

Aims

The aims of this course are to:

Develop an analytical background for understanding issues on climate change, the built environment, policies and land development
Apply these theoretical ideas to a series of practical cases from developed and developing countries, ranging from individual buildings and organisations, to communities and global programmes of governance, and
Discuss recent innovative environmental, energy and economic policy options and alternative strategies for land development and community design.

Learning outcomes and skills acquisition

By the end of the course, students will:

Have an inter-disciplinary understanding of the major intellectual frameworks for analysing complex environmental issues such as climate change, including economics, law/politics and scientific/ecologicial (theoretical knowledge)
Be able to apply these intellectual frameworks to various topical issues facing communities, countries and policy-makers (practical application to contemporary issues)
Be able to think critically about current policy approaches, technologies, community designs and behavioural change, and identify what the main stakeholders stand to gain, and lose, through different strategies (design and assessment of policies and programmes).

Assessment

The module will be assessed through a two hour written examination. Candidates will be required to answer two questions from a choice of no fewer than five.

Course outline

Week 1: Defining the relationship(s) between the built environment, governance, behaviour, land and climate processes. Principles of environmental and ecological analysis. We will explore the scientific basis of climate change; how human society and patterns of land settlement influence natural processes underlying climate change; the uncertainties in climate risks and policy effectiveness; the range of policy, strategy and action plan options. Speaker: Doug Crawford-Brown. Date: 24 January
Week 2: The built environment and climate change I. We will develop methods to quantify and otherwise characterise the carbon footprints of communities; and to characterise the carbon sequestration potential of vegetation. We will explore how to quantify the climate change risk reduction of different designs and operations of the built environment. Speaker: Doug Crawford-Brown. Date 31 January
Week 3: The built environment and climate change II. We will examine how climate change mitigation and adaptation are addressed in planning and the design process, where there are complex ownership and governance chains that require integration of actions by diverse stakeholders. Speaker: Barbara Havel. Date 7 February
Week 4: Climate change and sustainable development. We will explore methods for assessing the sustainability of communities and economies, and develop policies and strategies to place climate change aims inside the wider aims of sustainability in developed and developing nations. Use will be made of multi-criteria decision analysis. Speaker: Doug Crawford-Brown. Date 14 February
Week 5: Theory and principles of climate policy. We will examine the major national and global policy mechanisms, instruments and institutions for climate change policy (e.g. CDM, NAMAs and REDD+), and the rationality underlying them, including how these relate to other aims of policy, law, respect for rights, etc. Speaker: Sophie Chapman. Date 21 February
Week 6: Climate change and economic vulnerability. We will examine how climate impacts (e.g. storms or heat waves) affect the performance of economies, using the example of the London economy. We will explore where economies are most vulnerable to such impacts, and how to reduce this vulnerability through targeted public and private investment as well as mechanisms of emergency response. Speaker: Doug Crawford-Brown. Date 28 February
Week 7: Climate policy, precaution and risk. We will develop a theoretical framework for determining risks from climate change and the effectiveness of policies, strategies and actions in reducing these risks. We will relate this framework to the precautionary principle, and examine how to harmonise the basis for climate policy with other areas of environmental policy. Speaker: Doug Crawford-Brown. Date 6 March
Week 8: Development and case study of international negotiations: The UNFCCC process. This seminar will follow soon after 17^th Conference of the Parties under UNFCCC. We will be exploring the issues discussed during that COP, as well as at Copenhagen and Cancun, how global climate policy is likely to emerge over the coming decade, and how mitigation and adaptation might be driven as much by community planning as international policies. Speakers: Doug Crawford-Brown, Sophie Chapman and Barbara Havel. Date 13 March

Module structure

The module runs for 8 weeks, with one 2-hour session per week. Each session is divided approximately into a 75 minute presentation by the instructors and a 35 minute seminar in which students apply the materials to a set problem. In addition, Dr Crawford-Brown will have 2 hours per week available for supervisions to clarify materials and address questions.

Readings

All readings are available through the course website. They are indicated below by the week in which they apply.

Week 1

Richardson et al, Climate Change: Risk, Challenges and Decisions, 2009, International Alliance of Research Universities Synthesis Report., University of Copenhagen.

Week 2

DEFRA, 2009, Guidance on how to Measure and Report your Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK.

Week 3

Davoudi, S., Crawford, J. and Mehmood, A., 2009, Planning for Climate Change: Strategies for Mitigation and Adaptation for Spatial Planners, Earthscan Chapters 1-5, 9, 14, 18 and 21.

Week 4

Yohe, G.W., R.D. Lasco, Q.K. Ahmad, N.W. Arnell, S.J. Cohen, C. Hope, A.C. Janetos and R.T. Perez, 2007, Perspectives on Climate Change and Sustainability. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

DCLG, 2009, Multi-criteria Analysis: A Manual, Department of Communities and Local Government, UK.

Week 5

Yamin, F. and Depledge, J., 2004, The International Climate Change Regime: A Guide to Rules, Institutions and Procedures, Cambridge University Press.

Week 6

S. Hallegatte and V. Przyluski, 2010, The Economics of Natural Disasters: Concepts and Methods, Policy Research Working Paper 5507, World Bank

Week 7

D. Crawford-Brown, 1999, Chapter 1 (Risk), Risk-Based Environmental Decisions: Methods and Culture, Kluwer Academic Publishers

D. Crawford-Brown, T. Barker, A. Anger and O. Dessins, 2012, Ozone and PM Related Health Co-benefits of Climate Change Policies in Mexico, Environmental Science and Policy, 2012.

Week 8

Class will be devoted to a negotiating session using the tools and perspectives developed in the module. You should read a synthesis of the Collective Action problem provided through the Stern Review, which is cited as HM Treasury, 2006, Part VI: International Collective Action: Framework for Understanding International Collective Action for Climate Change, Chapter 21 of the Stern Review, UK.

Some Materials

Narrated Powerpoint lectures. The files are large, so lectures are is divided into several downloads. You should "re-knit" them by linking Parts A, B, C, etc in that order. You will need to enable your speaker to hear the narration. You can advance any slide when you are ready by hitting the right arrow on your keyboard.

Download Week 1 lecture (part a of four parts needed)

Download Week 1 lecture (part b of four parts needed)

Download Week 1 lecture (part c of four parts needed)

Download Week 1 lecture (part d of four parts needed)

Download Week 1/2 lecture (part a of only one part)

Download Week 2 lecture (part a of two parts needed)

Download Week 2 lecture (part b of two parts needed)

Download Week 3 lecture (Part 1)

Download Week 3 lecture (Part 2)

Download Week 5 lecture (part a of only one part)

Download Week 5 handout

Here is the Carbon Footprint Tool for Individuals and Organisations. I have provided the version with no data entered yet. You should practice using it by entering your own data and calculating your personal carbon footprint. We are also doing that in class.

Here is the Carbon Footprint Tool for Communities. I have provided the version with the data for Cambridge entered. This is the version we viewed in class. You should become familiar with how to simulate policies and their effect on the community carbon emissions.

Here is a set of Powerpoint slides with the carbon footprint, and strategies of reduction, for Cambridge. We are discussing this in class. These results stem from the Carbon Footprint Tool for Communities above.

Here is the Developed-Developing Nations Memo for the first week.

Example Questions

Each week, we will summarise here a question or two that you should be prepared to answer as part of the final examination. The examination will not consist exactly of these questions, but it is likely these skills will be be needed to answer the examination successfully.

Week 1: First, download the Developing-Developed Nations Memo. In it, I summarise a discussion we were having at 4CMR recently about the relative roles of the developed and developing nations in global climate policy. Look at the analysis. What is the role of the comparison of model results against the Mauna Loa data (i.e. why is this provided)? What is the role of the comparison of the STELLOA model (which we used in class) against the other, more detailed scientific models? Do the developed or developing nations play the larger roles in going above a doubling of the pre-industrial revolution level of atmospheric carbon in the future? What is the importance of population growth and control? What kinds of policies can you envision for reaching the policy target? What IS that policy target?

Week 2: First, download the Carbon Footprint Tool for Individuals and Organisations. Then assume you have the following characteristics: You use 6000 kWh/year of electricity; 18000 kWh/year of natural gas; you drive 15000 miles/year in a petrol vehicle that achieves 40 miles/gallon; you buy 2 laptops per year; you consume 0.1 tons of paper/year; you produce 2 tons/year of waste to a landfill; you make 3 round trips/year by air, 1000 miles per round trip. What is your total carbon footprint? What part of your life contributes the most to this carbon footprint? Does this footprint capture Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions? Does it capture ALL Scope 3 emissions? If not, what Scope 3 emissions might it be missing? How might you go about determining these, and adding them to your total carbon footprint? You want to reduce your carbon footprint by 80%. What combination of demand reduction and emissions factor reductions would produce this reduction in the total carbon footprint (assume half of the changes must be by demand reduction and half by reduction of the emissions factors). Which of these reductions are most directly under your control? If they are not under your direct control, what actions could you take that would at least influence these reductions?

Week 3: You are in charge of a competition to select the design for a new community that will become a model for how all communities must be built and operate in the future if climate change risks are to be reduced significantly. What aspects of a communities design, construction and operation are relevant to climate change risk reduction? What aspects are part of the built environment and what aspects are related to how people choose to live within that built environment? How will you determine which aspects have the most significant effect on climate risk reduction? What will you do if a design performs well on some aspects but not others; how will you balance these considerations in selecting the best overall proposal (e.g., think of multi-criteria analysis from next week)? Give concrete examples of the kinds of design, construction and operation features you will expect to see in the winning proposal, and of the kinds of information and analyses you will expect the proposers to provide in verifying that their design will produce the quantitative results desired and promised. What kinds of planning hurdles might the winning design encounter, and how might you expect to overcome these?

Week 4: You receive the winning design from the question to Week 3. From the design team, you receive information on the reduction in carbon emissions that will be accomplished if the community is built, with this reduction being relative to what the emissions would have been if the community were simply built to existing UK code. You are then given the task of determining whether this design fits within a larger programme of sustainable development for the region in which the community will sit. Using a DPSIR framework and multi-criteria analysis, explain how you will assess the design's ability to help with sustainability under a variety of possible Drivers of economic growth, population change, climate change, etc. You should use the UK National Indicators as the basis for your sustainability assessment (see the file to be downloaded on the site https://sites.google.com/site/csccrmproject/planning-toolkit).