Green roofs provide an excellent example of how mitigation and adaptation efforts can be integrated to produce synergistic benefits. A green roof is essentially a layer of vegetation planted over a waterproofing system that is installed on top of a flat or slightly sloped roof.
Green roofs play a crucial role in helping cities adapt to heat waves by providing natural cooling, while also mitigating the human impact on climate change by sequestering carbon and reducing the need for artificial cooling systems that emit greenhouse gases (Laukkonen et al., 2009). For urban areas that are vulnerable to the urban heat island effect, green roofs are a perfect fit within an integrated framework of climate change planning.
Synergistic opportunities, like the application of green roofs, exist in many different sectors. Sharifi (2021) identifies opportunities for co-benefits and synergies between mitigation and adaptation in nine different sectors, including urban design/land use planning, transportation, building, waste, energy, green infrastructure, water, urban governance & planning, and behavioral issues. For example, in the “building” sector, “building material durability improvement” is a measure that has positive effects on both mitigation and adaptation because 1) high-durability building materials reduce carbon emissions related to maintenance, and 2) they also improve the adaptive capacity of the resident community with regard to flooding and other climate-related disasters.
What are the sectors that have the most synergistic opportunities?
Grafakos et al. (2020) used the Urban Climate Change Integration Index (UCCII) to evaluate 147 climate change action plans from a subset of 885 European cities. The UCCII framework employs various integration indicators to determine the extent of adaptation/mitigation integration. Examples of these indicators include “common policy or regulatory framework,” “consideration of adaptation/mitigation interrelationships,” “common public education and outreach,” and “common monitoring procedure/framework.”
According to the findings of Grafakos et al. (2020), the sectors with the most synergies are “Green urban infrastructure” and “Construction, energy efficiency, and buildings”. This indicates that adopting an integrated and holistic approach to climate planning in these sectors can help to harness synergies and provide valuable opportunities for improving mitigation and adaptation outcomes. Moreover, it can better prepare cities for climate change in the years ahead.
References:
Grafakos, S., Viero, G., Reckien, D., and et al. (2020). Integration of mitigation and adaptation in urban climate change action plans in Europe: A systematic assessment. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 121, N.PAG. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2019.109623
Laukkonen, J., Blanco, P. K., Lenhart, J., Keiner, M., Cavric, B., & Kinuthia-Njenga, C. (2009). Combining climate change adaptation and mitigation measures at the local level. Habitat International, 33(3), 287–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2008.10.003
Sharifi, A. (2021). Co-benefits and synergies between urban climate change mitigation and adaptation measures: A literature review. Science of the Total Environment, 750, N.PAG. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141642
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