Climate change, urban and environmental planning: Discussing the case of Rio de Janeiro

The literature about climate change identifies different impacts on large cities and urban agglomerations. Increased mean temperatures and humidity variations  can lead to human health risks. The expected sea level rise and the predictable, and already detected, increase in the number of extreme weather events, like floods, also pose new risks. Rio de Janeiro City could have over 10% of its total area affected by the sea level rise; the metropolitan area 18%. Furthermore, in the last three years, this region has experienced a remarkable increase in the occurrence of extreme rainfall events, leading to flooding, landslides and other damage. Urban planning and city management have to deal with these impacts.

Upon issue of Law No. 12187 29/12/2009, Brazil’s National Policy on Climate Change was established. At the local municipal level, until early 2011, only Rio de Janeiro (27/01/2011) and São Paulo (05/06/2009) established public policies on climate change with mandatory targets. Recently, in the case of Rio de Janeiro municipality, an urban development master plan has also been approved (01/02/2011). The purpose of this paper is to examine how these two instruments address the issue of adaptation to climate change. We also seek to examine discussion of the same issue in the context of participatory councils dedicated to urban policies (Compur) and environment policies (CONSEMAC). The decision to treat the adaptation issue is justified insofar as it is directly linked to that of territorial planning. It has the potential to bring the ways of thinking about territorial planning into question, and to integrate urban and environmental planning through implementation of the adaptive measures that are defined, in this paper, not only as investments in infrastructure, but also as non-structural mesures.