The Climate Change Challenge for the Urban Environment: The Use of an Integrated Management System

Abstract

European citizens are experiencing directly the impacts of the rapidly changing climate. In the whole of Europe, extreme situations such as heat waves, floods, storms and forest fires, as well as sea level rise, droughts and scarcity of water in the southern parts of Europe, are occurring more frequently. Both European and national targets concerning the climate change challenge need to be implemented at the local and regional level. Local and regional authorities have huge potential to fight climate change by developing and implementing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies within their scope of responsibility and through stakeholder involvement. Local and regional authorities are responsible for a variety of planning and management issues and have the possibility to implement concrete measures. They are also directly involved in awareness raising, incentive setting and providing further support to their communities to tackle climate change. The focus of the CHAMP project is to support capacity development for local authorities to combat climate change through an integrated management system. The response to climate change calls for full integration of policies and structures that few local and regional authorities in Europe have in place. It also requires involvement of stakeholders to implement successful measures. The project initiates the establishment of national support centres in four European countries for training local authorities in implementing integrated management for climate change response.