Analyzing the Relationship between Environmental Planning Policies and Climate Change: Multinomial Logit Regression Model Evaluation of Tarrant County, Texas

Abstract

Climate change is regarded as one of the greatest challenge human society is facing in this century. The debate on climate change raises the issue of the need to mainstream climate change mitigation in environmental planning. However this has remained research rhetoric and is not transformed to practice. One reason for this gap between research and environmental planning practice might be lack of empirical evidences that analyzes if a relationship between environmental planning policies and climate change mitigation exists. Most planners consent that cities have an ability to mitigate climate change by integrating and implementing environmental policies. However, lack of statistical studies supporting the ability of environmental planning policies in mitigating climate change might have probably halted the process of mainstreaming climate change mitigation in urban planning to some extent. This study evaluated 30 cities comprehensive plans in Tarrant County, Texas for the presence of environmental planning policies that focus on climate change mitigation. Multinomial logistic regression analysis signifies that city’s environmental planning policies have an ability to mitigate climate change. Thereby, this research has an implication for mainstreaming environmental planning policies in urban planning accordingly mitigate climate change from a local level perspective.