Track 13 ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE

Track chairs: Francesco Musco, Claudia Carter, Michael Lennon, Bruna Pincegher

The challenges posed to society by significant and rapid changes in climate, the continued loss of habitats and species, and the deterioration of natural cycles are both highly complex and interwoven. Urban and spatial planning are therefore key to addressing these challenges and to steering territories, cities and communities towards more sustainable, resilient and just futures. Yet planning frequently struggles with institutional inertia and fragmentation, maladapted human behaviours, spatial dilemmas, obstructionist politics, competing land and resource uses, and a focus on short-term economic or electoral gains, to name just a few issues.

This track seeks to disentangle and examine such multifaceted challenges with a view to identifying how urban and spatial planning theory, policy and practice can help societies successfully navigate socio-ecological transitions, enhance climate resilience, and integrate adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity protection and ecosystem restoration into spatial and territorial transformation. The track is anchored by the question: “How can we imagine desirable futures that urban and spatial planning can feasibly help deliver?”

Papers are invited that offer novel ideas and showcase pioneering examples of planning for progressive transitions at different spatial and governance scales, and in different socio-ecological contexts. Contributions may address cities, metropolitan areas, rural and coastal territories, land–sea interactions and other spatial contexts where climate and environmental pressures call for new planning approaches. Particular attention is welcomed on innovative planning instruments, nature-based and ecosystem-based approaches, climate adaptation and resilience strategies, spatial justice, multi-level governance, and new forms of knowledge and participation capable of supporting transformative action.

Cognisant that planning is often just one (albeit important) dimension of meeting such multidimensional challenges, this track also seeks to explore how planning and planners can innovatively work across disciplines and sectors to help foster positive change. 

Keywords: climate change mitigation and adaptation; green infrastructure and nature-based solutions; socio-ecological transitions; ecological regeneration; resilience.