Enhancing Integration of Disaster Risk and Climate Change Adaptation into Irish Emergency Planning

Peter Medway,Dug Cubie,Martin Le Tissier,Stephen Flood

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-80791-7_5

Peter Medway, Dug Cubie + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80791-7_5

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Abstract

AbstractThis chapter critically assesses the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction with a special focus on the Irish policy and governance context. The chapter first presents a comprehensive overview of the Irish policy environment for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction including its current level of integration. Analysis of alignment with global and regional drivers of integration is then considered. Next, drawing on empirical research conducted with multidisciplinary experts across the Republic of Ireland, the chapter employs the SHIELD model, developed by the EU-funded ESPREssO project, which outlines six pathways to enhance integration across the domains of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. The pathways comprise of sharing knowledge, harmonising capacities, institutionalising coordination, engaging stakeholders, leveraging investments and developing communication. Findings of stakeholder focus groups and survey responses highlight the challenges and opportunities for impactful integration between climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Ireland from a practitioner perspective across the six SHIELD pathways. Finally, conclusions from the study indicate the importance of governance, management and coordination of systems for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction; the sequencing of policy-making, planning and research; and the significance of specificity in relation to use of the six SHIELD pathways.

Highlights

And in Ireland, there are clear policy drivers that recommend the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction
Ireland’s National Adaptation Framework (NAF), published in 2018, notes that ‘there is a growing recognition at European Union (EU)/international level of the need for greater integration of emergency planning and climate change adaptation ... [T]his has already begun in Ireland
Participants were not complacent about the level of effort and other costs needed by both government institutions and external stakeholder groups to sustain engagement over time, such as with the challenges arising from competing interests and the readiness of existing collaborators, like the established voluntary emergency services, to adapt and take on new tasks related to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation

Summary

Introduction

In Ireland, there are clear policy drivers that recommend the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. The EU’s new Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change (European Commission, 2021) highlights both how the importance of adaptation is increasingly recognised globally and the lack of preparedness for it. Ireland’s National Adaptation Framework (NAF), published in 2018, notes that ‘there is a growing recognition at EU/international level of the need for greater integration of emergency planning ( disaster risk reduction) and climate change adaptation ... Question, is not: should climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction be better integrated; but how should it be done in Ireland?

Methodology

This chapter provides a high-level summary of the research report

Findings

Conclusions