ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the question: how do policies designed to adapt to changing climates support policies to mitigate climate change? It reviews adaptation case studies in the United States and Australia. A key challenge in achieving the dual goals of climate change planning is that the land-use policy options to address adaptation and mitigation may conflict. The chapter discusses key concepts and approaches underlying mitigation planning, then the responses increasingly advocated for climate change adaptation, before highlighting areas of potential conflict. Examining local level policy responses is important because it is the specific qualities of particular urban settings and climatic zones that determine relative vulnerability to particular climate change impacts and it is at this scale that most adaptation actions should be defined. To summarize, the key land-use pattern implication of climate change mitigation is concentrating development so that car travel and building energy use is reduced; it brings a strong new impetus to the existing anti-sprawl/smart growth campaign.
