Integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation into sustainable development planning for Lijiang City

Abstract

Cities are facing considerable challenges resulting from imminent climate change impacts. Urban planning to minimise adverse impacts of climate change at the city level can establish a climate-resilient city. Mitigation strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions would lead to a climate-friendly city. Integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation into sustainable city planning should not be merely added as a single level of sustainable city planning, but requires a wide range of multi-level cooperation. Lijiang City has experienced climatic change during the last half century, and its CO₂ emissions have increased faster than the GDP growth. Nearby glaciers on Yulong Snow Mountain have been retreating and losing mass since the early twentieth century. In this paper, we identify economic sectors that are vulnerable to climate change, including tourism, agriculture and water supply, and propose mitigation and adaptation strategies to cope with climate change in this tourism city. As energy use is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, renewable energy has enormous CO₂ reduction potential. Land use practices, a sectoral approach and public participation are all considered adaptive in climate planning. The proposals outlined are valuable as they provide an understanding of how to implement integrated climate planning and integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation into sustainable city planning.

Keywords:

• climate change
• adaptation
• mitigation
• city planning

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by One Hundred Talents Program and Innovation Projects of Chinese Academy of Sciences (08I4071D10; D-2009-02; KZCX2-YW-450-1). We thank Jonathan Vause and Xuanqi Li for their helpful advice on this research.