Abstract Summary
Climate change has been defined as observed variations of average climatic conditions on a specific time period (decade, year, etc). Since the industrial revolution, external impacts of Anthropocene activities have been accelerating the climate change process with the accumulation of greenhouse gasses on the atmosphere. Direct results of this process necessitated policy makers and related professionals to deal with extreme weather conditions, UHI, floods, droughts, air - soil - water pollution and so on. In the literature, there are vast amount of researches related to framing the vulnerabilities of climate change related impacts, mitigation & adaptation policies and tools, identification of roles of related stakeholders and last but not the least sectoral positioning for long term planning at different scales. On the other hand, global and national / regional climate change adaptation and / or mitigation policies have been still keeping its significance as the progress being very limited or slowly influencing national governments’ actions globally. Two of the significant conclusions of the Planners for Climate Action (P4CA) initiative being launched at UNFCC COP23 in Bonn were the emphasis of urban based climate change actions and the role of planning via practice, research and education (Statement of Dr. Joan Closs, The Executive Director of UN Habitat, 2017). Therefore, this paper aims to focus on the impacts of cities on climate change and the role of spatial planning in this process, the gaps on the integration of spatial planning into climate change adaptation & mitigation policies and tools through critical literature assessment. The results of the paper will highlight the need of land management related strategies of spatial planning discipline to better integrate the role of cities in the adaptation process. Finally, climate change impacts urge spatial planning discipline to adapt itself in many aspects, education, practice and community awareness. This paper aims to outline diverse dimensions of planning integration while focusing on cities.
