Australian Planners and Urban Designers: Barriers and Enablers to Climate Change Action

Abstract

The 6th chapter of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, “Cities, settlements and key infrastructure” (2022), establishes that planning and urban design are fundamental aspects to climate change action, but that impediments to this action need to overcome (p.6-93). In this context, ways for practitioners to act on climate change often remain unclear, particularly within complex urban management processes and systems (IPCC 2022: 6-90, 6-105).  

The results of a study into the barriers and enablers to climate change action as described by urban designers and planners in Australia are reported. First, the practices of planning and urban design are considered, with emphasis upon goals and challenges. Second, the literature considering planning and urban design’s role in addressing climate change action is considered. A description of the Australian context is provided, including professional roles, alongside typical procedural and regulatory settings.

Five broad themes are then established as conceptual starting points for the study. First, inter-relationships and integration challenges recognises that planning and urban design exists in complex arenas of diverse interests, agents and responsibilities (Elrahman and Moureen 2021). Second, diverse scalar connections and systems recognise the breadth of concerns. This means that practice seeks to deal with ongoing complexities of integration, frustrated by incomplete powers, information, and interest clashes (Sorkin 2013). Third, are the increasing diverse goals sought by individuals and agencies. Fourth, practitioner action is generally expected to seek out public values through regulatory structures sanctioning state interventions (Carmona et al. 2021). Fifth, practitioner action is often required to temper and align others’ ambitions towards public or common values (Carmona et al. 2021).

Practitioners from diverse locations, agency and firm types within Australia were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews included questions focused on participants’ own professional practice, their organisation, and the profession at large, oriented to the barriers and facilitators to climate change action in the built environment. Qualitative thematic analysis techniques were used following a quasi-inductive or abductive approach (Piekkari 2018).

Six key themes emerged:  Value Alignment, Incentives and Accountability; Economics and financial; Information and Feedback Loops; Influence, Culture and Leadership; Regulation; Temporal and Spatial Scales.  These key themes show that strong leadership, whether it was at state or local government level or within the private sector is a key enabler.  Setting of key targets and firm regulations alongside financial and other incentives were seen as pivotal. The existence of trustworthy and appropriate information for both decision makers and practitioners was considered fundamental. Finally, culture and organisational leadership, alongside government provided opportunities for integration emerged as strong findings. The findings show that most action is oriented to adaptation, rather than mitigation, while practitioners strongly believe in seeking long terms public-value oriented outcomes. Overall, most practitioners considered that the full potential of planning and urban design is not being met.