Integrating Climate Change into the ICZM planning process - Realising the Vision

Introduction

Establishment

Analysis and Futures

Setting the Vision

Designing the Future

Realising the Vision

Implementing

ICZM involves a wide range of instruments to implement the strategy. A central pillar is land use regulation and the limitation on the use of certain areas on environmental grounds. But also important is adoption of standards for building, energy and other sectors that provide goods and services. In addition it is increasing important to use fiscal instruments to promote certain actions that are considered desirable. The use of such instruments serves a number of purposes. First, it is more flexible than direct physical controls for the person whose actions are being affected. Second, if the instrument takes the form of a charge it allows the authorities to raise much needed financial resources that can be put to use to provide the essential public goods. Third, as long as the charge is in place it provides a continued incentive towards greater efficiency, which is not the case when only physical controls that have to be complied with.

Areas where fiscal instruments could be used, specifically to address some of the climate change impacts that have been discussed are:

• Transferable development rights, where an individual whose rights have been taken away in one location can have them reallocated in another location. These make the introduction of new regulations easier and allow a market in such rights to develop .
• The use of charges that better reflect the cost of services, particularly related to water.
• Development of insurance markets to provide cover against risks of flooding etc. to the extent that they bear at least part of the costs. This encourages the private sector and individuals to modify their behaviour and not take excessive risks, as they tend to do when all damage costs are covered through public funds.
• Charges on tourists to cover the additional burden of the public services they demand, as a source of finance for improved environmental protection.

The range of instruments to be used in the ICZM should be identified in the strategy, along with some priorities indicating which ones are preferred from a national viewpoint. The actual selection, however, will be made at the plan stage, national or local as appropriate.

Investment and Infrastructure

Some of a climate related actions will involve investment in protective infrastructure, such as sea walls, dykes and desalinisation facilities. As noted, the ICZM should not give priority to such solutions, but look in the first instance for lower cost options which involve early warning systems, use of fiscal and other incentives etc. However, some investments will be needed, and some investments that are part of the development plan will need to be modified in the light of climate change. Examples of these include measures in buildings to withstand increased impacts from extreme weather events, transport systems that have to take account of increased risks of subsidence etc. Some of these investments will be in the public sector and some will be in the private sector.

The ICZM should provide guidance to the private sector on how to address the additional climate risks. There are various sources for this, such as the World Bank (see e.g. World Bank, 1997). In the case of public sector investments, a key aspect is funding. Some funds may be available from the Global Adaptation Fund or other international sources. These will require careful and detailed assessment of the costs and benefits of the outlays. Some guidance on how to prepare these has been provided in this report, but further examples and information can be found in Nicholls, 2007 , Ranger et al. 2010 , UKCIP, 2003 . The issues discussed above should be noted in the strategy, which should identify possible sources of funding and the need for support for capacity building. The national and local plans would then elaborate some of these requirements as they apply in their respective contexts.

Acting

Lessons learnt from the early attempts should be shared across the ICZM community and used to improve future plans. This applies specially in the climate area, where there is not much experience with the implementation of actual policies and measures and lessons are being learnt all the time.

A dissemination and replication strategy is defined at the strategy stage and elaborated in the national plan.

Monitoring and Review

It is critical that the planners continue to track information on climate impacts as new data are coming out all the time. These may affect the proposed adaptation actions, which should be revisited periodically, as new knowledge is gained. In addition, as for all aspects of ICZM it is important to monitor how successful the actions that have been taken have been in achieving the goals they were set for, and what have been the related impacts of introducing the relevant measures. There is nothing specific from climate change here, except of course that that the climate related actions are subject to the same monitoring and evaluation. These critical steps in the implementation of the plans are noted as described in the strategy.

See Also

• The Realising the Vision phase in the IMF document

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