Federal, State, and City Approaches

The known impacts of climate change are many and include increases in the severity and frequency of heat waves, drought, and floods, as well as more rapid coastal erosion. Even if society stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the impacts of past and current emissions would still be felt in many regions for decades to come. Therefore, society must adapt to the coming impacts of climate change. Adaptation plans will allow many regions, states, and cities to protect public health and build resilience.

State and local governments are critical actors in the adaptation scheme. Climate impacts are highly localized within geographic regions. State and local governments’ expertise in the values, assets, and challenges of their communities make them well-positioned to craft and implement adaptation plans that will be most effective for their citizens and environments.

The GCC has crafted three resources to aid state and local policy makers in understanding 1) what possibilities exist for federal assistance, 2) what emerging best practices look like, and 3) how federal adaptation language is changing.

• Federal legislation. This chart describes recent and pending federal legislation that will directly affect states in their adaptation planning and actions. (Download the pdf)

• U.S. state and city adaptation plans. This resource listing details current adaptation plans undertaken by U.S. states and cities:

• State Adaptation Plans (Download the pdf)

• City Adaptation Plans (Download the pdf)

 

• The GCC also released these two comparisons of adaptation provisions contained in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454):

• Committee-passed (May 21, 2009) and the House-passed (Jun 26, 2009) versions of HR 2454;

• Waxman Markey Discussion Draft (Mar 31, 2009) and the Committee-passed version of HR 2454 (May 21, 2009).