Implications for Future Risk Management Strategies - Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities - page 60

each other (e.g., Kirshen et al., 2008), the city has embarked on a long-term, continuous
plan both to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHG) and to adapt to climate change. The ini-
tial strategies are documented in the recently released the report, A Climate of Progress,
City of Boston Climate Action (City of Boston, 2011).
This plan is focused on the adaptation planning, to which Boston is giving the same
priority as mitigation The city's adaptation efforts are centered upon managing the im-
pacts from sea-level rise, increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, and increased
intensity of storms. The planning is designed to address the health, economic, and social
consequences of these impacts and not to further stress existing social and economic
inequalities - in fact, the goal is to reduce these whenever possible. Other adaptation
actions include triennial plan review to maintain flexibility, considering climate change
in all planning and reviews to identify no regrets, low cost, and wait and see strate-
gies, and carrying out case studies. Planning is coordinated by a working group of eight
city agencies under the leadership of the Office of Environmental and Energy Services.
While coordinating with others, each major agency is atempting to go as far in adapta-
tion planning as they can on their own. There is also cooperation with the many NGOs
in the region and other levels of government. These efforts will form the foundation for
the formation of a new task force in a few years to freshly examine long-term and low-
probability, potentially catastrophic risks of climate change. Some of the actions the City
is taking are summarized in Table 7 .
With these strategies, the city is starting a continuous adaptation planning pro-
cess. Presently it is a decentralized approach among the city's agencies driven by sev-
eral broad mandates with central coordination when needed. The recently started BWSC
master planning process will provide the first test of how successful this approach can
be because the plan's time frame includes the start of significant climate change stres-
sors, stakeholders range from individual households (e.g., basement flooding) to the
federal government (e.g., Boston Harbor pollution) and the long-term adaptive water in-
frastructure strategies will impact many sectors other than just sewage and storm water
(Appendix A).
2) CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION IN NEW YORK CITY
The latest environmental challenge for New York City that requires long term strategic
planning is climate change. It is projected to have wide impacts on the city's critical in-
frastructure through higher temperatures, more intense flooding events, and sea level
rise. Because of its early recognition of the risks posed by climate change and its current
commitment to mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as to adaptation,
New York City has become a national and international leader in responding to climate
change (Rosenzweig and Solecki, 2010).
Current climate change adaptation efforts in New York City build on previous as-
sessments and studies. Within the metropolitan region, leading scientists, agency rep-
resentatives, and nongovernmental organization members have been studying issues
related to climate extremes and climate change for more than a decade. In 2004, a climate
change adaptation initiative was launched by the NYC Department of Environmental
Protection. The major product of the NYC DEP Task Force was the Climate Change As-
sessment and Action Plan for the agency (NYCDEP 2008). Since many climate change