Drought, beetle kill, extended fire seasons, disappearing glaciers, early spring runoff—these signs of climate change flicker at the edge of Western life like the lightning flashes of an approaching summer storm. Late last month, the Western Governors’ Association, a nonpartisan organization that works with the governors of 19 western states and three U.S. territories, took a step to prepare for the impending hail with the publication of their new report, “Climate Adaptation Priorities for the Western States.”
As Michelle Nijhuis describes in her March 2006 High Country News story “Save Our Snow,” many communities across the West are taking measures to address the causes of climate change by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions through methane capture, public transit, renewable energy adoption, and more. But reducing emissions up front is only one strategy.
That’s where “climate adaptation” comes in. Climate adaptation means preparing for what many models now predict as the inevitable effects of climate change. Western states, the Western Governors’ Association report argues, are already leading the way on this sort of policy and will benefit from coordinating their efforts. For example, the state of Alaska created an interagency working group to help small villages that are imperiled by increasing flooding and erosion. In extreme cases, this group even relocates villages to new land.
Meanwhile, Washington state has turned climate change research into on-the-ground planning. In 2007 their Department of Ecology, which gathers and disseminates information about climate change impacts to local governments, made recommendations that led to a modification of the design of the new city hall in Olympia to elevate the ground floor above predicted rises in sea level. California, Oregon, and Arizona also have extensive climate adaptation planning in place.
The Western Governors’ Association report sets up a means of spreading those states’ ideas across the West. It also outlines ways to coordinate regional and national efforts at climate change adaptation, and supports climate change research and makes sure it addresses the needs of policymakers. Western states will be at the frontlines of climate change’s impacts, the report notes, and are already used to dealing with climate variability, so they’ll be key to informing national climate adaptation policies as they are developed.
“The Western states have always dealt with scarcity,” says Hedia Adelsman, Executive Policy Advisor in Director’s Office at the Washington Department of Ecology. “They deal with conflict all the time. This is going to be just another notch or couple of notches above what they are dealing with right now.”
Emilene Ostlind is a High Country News intern.
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