Climate Risk and Security: New Meanings of “the Environment” in the English Planning System

Abstract

Planning in England1 represents an important arena for the development and contestation of environmental discourses. Over the last century the changing assumptions about human-nature relationship have led to numerous meanings of “the environment” in planning. These have in turn influenced the choices made between: preserving, enhancing, protecting, compromising, trading, exploiting or guarding against, the environment. While recognizing the nuances of the environmental discourses, this paper identifies eight distinct meanings of the environment in contemporary plans including the environment: as local amenity, as heritage landscape, as nature reserve, as storehouse of resources, as tradable commodity, as problem, as sustainability and as risk. The latter has emerged as a result of growing climate change awareness. The paper argues that, while the emphasis on climate change mitigation has reinforced some aspects of the sustainability discourse, the adaptation agenda has introduced a new meaning of the environment as risk. This portrays the environment not so much in terms of assets to be sustained for human benefit, but in terms of threats against which human well-being should be safeguarded. Framed in the language of risk and security, this new discourse is bringing to the fore some of the outmoded approaches to planning.

Acknowledgements

This paper is partly based on the research undertaken for the Arcadia Project (Adaptation and Resilience in Cities: Analysis and Decisions-making using Integrated Assessment, award number EP/G060983/1). I would like to thank the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council for their financial support. I would also like to thank Dr Elizabeth Brooks at Newcastle University for her invaluable assistance in the review of the literature and the analysis of the planning documents, and the two reviewers for their constructive comments.

Notes

The focus of the paper is on the planning system in England which following the devolution of planning powers differs from the rest of the UK.

Discourse in this paper is defined as a shared narrative which enables those who subscribe to them make sense of fragmented information (Dryzek, 1997).

It is now called the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Along with the work of Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus on mechanics and cosmology.

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of this generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 8).

Defined as the need to drastically reduce the anthropogenic (human-induced) greenhouse gas emissions.

Defined as the need to adapt to the impact of climate change.

Through the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

Such as the UK Climate Impact Programme (2006), the EU White Paper on Adapting to Climate Change (2009) and the UK Climate Change Act (2008).

These include “Identify the scope of the policy; Establish criteria for policy making and exposure unit, Assess risk, Identify options, Appraise options, Formulate policy, and Implement, monitor and review” (ODPM, 2004b).