Are we planning effectively for climate change? An evaluation of official community plans in British Columbia

Abstract

Mounting evidence of global climate change encourages planning responses that seek to mitigate change and to adapt to changes considered to be inevitable. The province of British Columbia recently mandated that municipal official community plans (OCPs) contain targets and policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The authors use content analysis to evaluate mitigation and adaptation content in 39 OCPs, and find that 25 of the OCPs explicitly address climate change, and that the OCPs are stronger with respect to goals and policies than to fact base and implementation provisions. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening municipal climate change planning.