Local and regional government across the state are struggling to address new regulatory mandates around climate change adaptation and resilience, extreme events and hazard mitigation/disaster recovery. This course will briefly walk the student through the federal, state, regional and local context for resilience, focusing on the local government perspective. The class will then work through the California State specific paradigm, where some local government planning 101 will be provided to support a deeper examination of how local governments are required and incentivized to plan for climate change adaptation and resilience. Lastly, the class will build capabilities around what to consider when implementing programs and policies, developing RFPs, considering short and long term funding and how to create a sustainable resilience initiative at the local level. A variety of professionals would benefit from attendance, including public agency planners, elected officials, city managers, finance professionals, attorneys, sustainability professionals, developers, regulators, state agency staff, and others.
Students will leave with an understanding of how to address climate adaptation and resilience in California, including:
- Basic background of what climate change adaptation and resilience means at the State, regional and local level
- Legislation specific to California that drives mandates and incentives to address climate change adaptation and resilience
- Specific resources/processes that are required to be used in California for addressing climate change adaptation and resilience
- Understanding of how to incorporate resilience and climate change impacts/adaptation into local government plans such as in a general plan, adaptation/resilience plan, local hazard mitigation plan and others
- Understanding of implementation and financing tools to support resilience and climate change impacts/adaptation priorities