Climadapt.Local: Spreading and Strengthening Municipal Adaptation

Local authorities are fundamental in tackling climate change. They can bank on their close proximity to citizens and their strategic and mediating role in the interaction between civil society, private sector and central government.

In this context, and in order to promote effective Climate Change adaptation at the municipal level, the ClimAdaPT.Local project aims to develop a prolific interaction between municipal decision-making structures and local communities, in light of the main aims of the European Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change and of the Portuguese Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change.

ClimAdaPT.Local’s trans-disciplinary team is currently supporting 26 Local Authorities in the development and implementation of their Municipal Adaptation Strategies (MAS). The project’s team is simultaneously: (i) raising awareness of local stakeholders; (ii) providing training to municipal technicians regarding Climate Change Adaptation issues; and (iii) promoting Adaptation mainstreaming into local planning tools/policy. An additional project task is the development of a set of specific support tools to facilitate the MAS’s elaboration and implementation by the 26 pilot-municipalities. In the near future, the goal is to extend this approach to the remaining 282 Portuguese municipalities.

This presentation will outline some initial key findings that have emerged from: (i) the project’s deliberative workshops with the 26 local communities; and (ii) the results of the ongoing evaluation surveys applied to key-stakeholders, local policy makers, and municipal officers.