Download - GRaBS

delivering green
infrastructure to
combat climate
change
Susannah Gill looks at the framework, developed with
support from the GRaBS project, for planning and delivering
green infrastructure to adapt to and mitigate climate change in
the North West of England – and at routes to delivery in the
wake of the removal of the regional tier of planning
The latest scientific evidence has reinforced the
strength of assessments that climate change is the
greatest threat to our social well-being and economic
future. 1 We must act now to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions in order to limit the severity of future
changes. It is also imperative that we take action now
to ensure that we are adapting to the anticipated
impacts of climate change; these are already being felt
and will intensify. The Stern Review on the Economics
of Climate Change 2 stressed that ‘the benefits of
strong, early action on climate change outweigh the
costs’. Taking river and coastal flooding alone, the
current cost of damage to businesses across the
North West of England is on average £43 million per
year; with projected climate change this increases by
223% to £138 million per year. 3 Timely adaptation
action could halve the costs and damage associated
with moderate amounts of climate change. 4
In the UK, it is anticipated that climate change will
lead to warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier
summers, and sea level rises; and that incidences
of extreme weather such as heatwaves, heavy
rainfall, and droughts will increase. This will have
wide-ranging impacts for society, the economy, and
wildlife, including increased flooding, increased heat
stress and heat-related deaths, and reduced water
availability in summer.
Green infrastructure interventions can assist in
combating climate change. The use of green
infrastructure is gaining increasing recognition as a
‘win-win’ or ‘low-regrets’ solution, as it provides
other social, environmental and economic benefits
and therefore helps to deliver on wider agendas 5,6
(see, for example, Fig. 1 7 ). A recently developed
Valuation Toolkit 8 trialled in Liverpool’s Knowledge
Quarter indicated that a £10million investment in
green infrastructure could realise £30 million in
benefits. 9 The UK’s Committee on Climate Change
Adaptation Sub-Committee states that ‘the minimum
we would expect from a society that is adapting well
is that low-regrets adaptation options are being
implemented’; it suggests that green infrastructure
planning in the built environment is such an option. 4
Green infrastructure has been defined in the North
West of England as our ‘life support system – the
network of natural environmental components and
green and blue spaces that lie within and between
our cities, towns and villages and provide multiple
social, economic and environmental benefits’. 10 It
has been argued that it should be strategically
planned and managed as critical infrastructure in
order to best ensure that it delivers these benefits. 11
Green infrastructure includes urban and rural
components, ranging from the designed to the
more natural, as well as public and privately owned
land – agricultural land, allotments, churchyards,
natural habitats, derelict land, amenity spaces,
green roofs, institutional grounds, outdoor sports
Town & Country Planning June 2011 : GRaBS Project – INTERREG IVC; ERDF-funded 277