The Basque administrations agree on the need to “act in a coordinated manner” to integrate climate change in territorial planning

01/06/2022

• Technical staff from the Basque Government, the three provincial councils, Ihobe and TECNALIA participate in a workshop to integrate climate change in territorial and urban planning.

One of the objectives of Urban Klima 2050 is to define the guidelines to integrate climate change and adaptation to it in the different territorial and urban planning tools. As part of this action, last 26 May a workshop was held with the presence of technical staff from the Basque Government, the three provincial councils, Ihobe and TECNALIA.

Prominent among the conclusions was the importance of considering climate change as a cross-cutting challenge and that the actions carried out by the administrations need to take this perspective into account. In order to achieve this objective they have the Partial Territorial Plans (PTP) which are in charge of developing the Territorial Planning Guidelines (TPG) which, as discussed during the debate, must be scaled from a sectoral to a cross-cutting perspective. During the workshop, they also called for a reinforcement of the PTP so that climate change can be integrated in them, in terms of both mitigation and adaptation, with more informative than scientific examples.

There is a positive assessment of the fact that the Basque Country already has updated, available and accessible climate information, which will be reinforced with Urban Klima 2050. The challenge seems to be in having greater knowledge of these resources, and in having clear criteria, standards and guidelines for their effective exploitation, as well as coherent guidelines at different territorial scales.

Likewise, there was a focus on the need to prepare a methodological guide for the integration of climate change in territorial planning and to thus act in a coordinated manner between all the administrations. Another measure put on the table was to dedicate part of the municipal budgets to measures that benefit citizens. They also pointed out the importance of identifying successful cases in other countries to apply them in territorial policies.

Urban Klima 2050 and the integration of climate change in sectoral policies  

The workshop was also used to analyse the LIFE IP Urban Klima 2050 project which among its actions has the inclusion of climate change adaptation in sectoral territorial plans, special plans and municipal emergency plans, with three specific actions:

• C.1 Establishment of guidelines for planning.
• C.2 Integration of climate change in territorial and urban planning
• C.3 Integration of climate change in sectoral policies (health, water and energy).