Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Western Governors' Association: "it is the states that will be on the front lines of climate change response..."

The Western Governors' Association has officially asked the Feds to step up to the plate on supporting state-level climate change adaptation.

Read the April 28, 2010, letter from the WGA to the heads of the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, and the Interior, signed by Governors Schwarzenegger and Richardson.

Download WGA Policy Resolution 09-2, "Supporting the Integration of Climate Change Adaptation Science in the West" (June 2009), which establishes a Climate Adaptation Work Group for the western states.

"The Work Group is currently comprised of representatives from WGA projects related to water, wildlife, forests and air."

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The policies I'm analyzing in my thesis, at this point...

At this point I'm examining and analyzing fourteen government policy documents for my thesis on climate change adaptation policies in the North Pacific.

Et voila, links (mostly to PDFs):

• Canada: From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007 (2008).

- British Columbia: Preparing for Climate Change: British Columbia’s Adaptation Strategy (February 2010).

- Yukon: Yukon Government Climate Change Action Plan (February 2009).

• Japan: Wise Adaptation to Climate Change (June 2008).

• The People’s Republic of China: China’s National Climate Change Programme (June 2007).

• The Russian Federation: Climate Doctrine of the Russian Federation (December 2009).

• The United States of America: Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (March 2010).

- Alaska: Alaska’s Climate Change Strategy: Addressing Impacts in Alaska (January 2010).

- California: 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy (December 2009).

---Oakland, California: City of Oakland Draft Energy and Climate Action Plan (April 2010).

- Hawaii: A Framework for Climate Change Adaptation in Hawaii (November 2009).

- Oregon: Final Report to the Governor: A Framework for Addressing Rapid Climate Change (January 2008).

- Washington: Leading the Way on Climate Change: The Challenge of Our Time (February 2008).

---King County, Washington: King County 2009 Climate Report (February 2010).

These are all policy documents produced by advisory groups or environmental ministries/ departments, except for the Russian "Climate Doctrine," which came directly out of the office of the president, signed only by Medvedev. I'm not sure what that means, but it's not at all a bad document in terms of laying out a vision for climate change adaptation. For mitigation of climate change... now, that's another matter. Oil producing nations seem keener on adaptation than on mitigation, I'm realizing. But that's another post for another day.