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Theoretical Foundations for Building Climate Resilience
Introduction: As the threat of environmental disturbances due to climate change becomes more and more relevant, so does the need for strategies to build a more resilient society. As climate resiliency literature has revealed, there are different strategies and suggestions that all work towards the overarching goal of building and maintaining societal resiliency.

Urban Resilience
There is increasing concern on an international level with regards to addressing and combating the impending implications of climate change for urban areas, where populations of these cities around the world are growing disproportionately high. There is even more concern for the rapidly growing urban centers in developing countries, where the majority of urban inhabitants are poor or “otherwise vulnerable to climate-related disturbances.” Urban centers around the world house important societal and economic sectors, so resiliency framework has been augmented to specifically include and focus on protecting these urban systems.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or more commonly referred to as the IPCC, defines resilience as “the ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity of self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change.” One of the most important notions emphasized in urban resiliency theory is the need for urban systems to increase their capacity to absorb environmental disturbances. By focusing on three generalizable elements of the resiliency movement, Tyler and Moench’s urban resiliency framework serves as a model that can be implemented for local planning on an international scale.

The first element of urban climate resiliency focuses on “systems’ or the physical infrastructure embedded in urban systems. A critical concern of urban resiliency is linked to the idea of maintaining support systems that in turn enable the networks of provisioning and exchange for populations in urban areas. These systems concern both physical infrastructure in the city and ecosystems within or surrounding the urban center; while working to provide essential services like food production, flood control, or runoff management. For example, city electricity, a necessity of urban life, depends on the performance of generators, grids, and distant reservoirs. The failure of these core systems jeopardizes human well-being in these urban areas, with that being said, it is crucial to maintain them in the face of impending environmental disturbances. Societies need to build resiliency into these systems in order to achieve such a feat. Resilient systems work to “ensure that functionality is retained and can be re-instated through system linkages” despite some failures or operational disturbances. Ensuring the functionality of these important systems is achieved through instilling and maintaining flexibility in the presence of a “safe failure.” Resilient systems achieve flexibility by making sure that key functions are distributed in a way that they would not all be affected by a given event at one time, what is often referred to as spatial diversity, and has multiple methods for meeting a given need, what is often referred to as functional diversity. The presence of safe failures also plays a critical role in maintaing these systems, which work by absorbing sudden shocks that may even exceed design thresholds. Environmental disturbances are certainly expected to challenge the dexterity of these systems, so the presence of safe failures almost certainly appears to be a necessity. Further, another important component of these systems is bounce-back ability. In the instance where dangerous climatic events affect these urban centers, recovering or "bouncing-back" is of great importance. In fact, in most disaster studies, urban resilience is often defined as "the capacity of a city to rebound from destruction." This idea of bounce-back for urban systems is also engrained in governmental literature of the same topic. For example, the former government's first Intelligence and Security Coordinator of the United States described urban resilience as "the capacity to absorb shocks and to bounce back into functioning shape, or at the least, sufficient resilience to prevent...system collapse." Keeping these quotations in mind, bounce-back discourse has been and should continue to be an important part of urban climate resiliency framework.

The next element of urban climate resiliency focuses on the social agents (also described as social actors) present in urban centers. Many of these agents depend on the urban centers for their very existence, so they share a common interest of working towards protecting and maintaining their urban surroundings. Agents in urban centers have the capacity to deliberate and rationally make decisions, which plays an important role in climate resiliency theory. One cannot overlook the role of local governments and community organizations, which will be forced to make key decisions with regards to organizing and delivering key services and plans for combating the impending effects of climate change. Perhaps most importantly, these social agents must increase their capacities with regards to the notions of “resourcefulness and responsiveness. Responsiveness refers to the capacity of social actors and groups to organize and re-organize, as well as the ability to anticipate and plan for disruptive events. Resourcefulness refers to the capacity of social actors in urban centers to mobilize varying assets and resources in order to take action. Urban centers will be able to better fend for themselves in the heat of climatic disturbances when responsiveness and resourcefulness is collectively achieved in an effective manner.

The final component of urban climate resiliency concerns the social and political institutions present in urban environments. Governance, the process of decision making, is a critical element affecting climate resiliency. As climate justice has revealed, the individual areas and countries that are least responsible for the phenomenon of climate change are also the ones who are going to be most negatively affected by future environmental disturbances. The same is true in urban centers. Those who are most responsible for climate change are going to disproportionally feel the negative effects of climatic disturbances when compared to their poorer, more vulnerable counterparts in society. Just like the wealthier countries have worked to create the most pollution, the wealthier subpopulations of society who can afford carbon-emitting luxuries like cars and homes undoubtedly produce a much more significant carbon footprint. It is also important to note that these more vulnerable populations, because of their inferior social statuses, are unable to participate in the decision-making processes with regards to these issues. Decision-making processes must be augmented to be more participatory and inclusive, allowing those individuals and groups most affected by environmental disturbances to play an active role in determining how to best avoid them. Another important role of these social and political institutions will concern the dissemination of public information. Individual communities who have access to timely information with regards to hazards are better able to respond to these threats.

Human Resilience
Global climate change is going to increase the probability of extreme weather events and environmental disturbances around the world, needless to say, future human populations are going to have to confront this issue. Every society around the world differs in its capacity with regards to combating climate change because of certain pre-existing factors such as the having the monetary and institutional needs to achieve such. Despite these differences, communities around the world are on a level-playing field with regards to building and maintaining at least some degree “human resilience”. Resilience has two components: that provided by nature, and that provided through human action and interaction. An example of climate resilience provided by nature is the manner in which porous soil more effectively allows for the drainage of flood water than more compact soil. An example of human action that affects climate resilience would be the facilitation of response and recovery procedures by social institutions or organizations. This theory of human resilience largely focuses on the human populations and calls for building towards the overall goal of decreasing human vulnerability in the face of climate change and extreme weather events. Vulnerability to climatic disturbances has two sides: the first deals with the degree of exposure to dangerous hazards, which one can effectively identify as susceptibility. The second side deals with the capacity to recover from disaster consequences, or resilience in other words. The looming threat of environmental disturbances and extreme weather events certainly calls for some action, and human resiliency theory seeks to solve the issue by largely focusing on decreasing the vulnerability of human populations.

How do human populations work to decrease their vulnerability to impending and dangerous climatic events? Up until recently, the international approach to environmental emergencies focused largely on post-impact activities such as reconstruction and recovery. However, the international approach is changing to a more comprehensive risk assessment that includes “pre-impact disaster risk reduction - prevention, preparedness, and mitigation.” In the case of human resiliency, preparedness can largely be defined as the measures taken in advance to ensure an effective response to the impact of environmental hazards. Mitigation, when viewed in this context, refers to the structural and nonstructural measures undertaken to limit the adverse impacts of climatic disturbances. This is not to be confused to mitigation with regards to the overall topic of climate change, which refers to reduction of carbon or greenhouse emissions. By accounting for these impending climate disasters both before and after the occur, human populations are able to decrease their vulnerability to these disturbances.

A major element of building and maintaining human resilience is public health. The institution of public health as a whole is uniquely placed at the community level to foster human resilience to climate-related disturbances. As an institution, public health can play an active part in reducing human vulnerability by promoting “healthy people and healthy homes.”. Healthy people are less likely to suffer from disaster-related mortality and are therefore viewed as more disaster-resilient. Healthy homes are designed and built to maintain its structure and withstand extreme climate events. By merely focusing on the individual health of populations and assuring the durability of the homes that house these populations, at least some degree human resiliency towards climate change can be achieved.

Recent Developments in Climate Resilience
Introduction: As the looming threat of climate change and environmental disturbances becomes more and more immediate, so does the need for policy to combat the issue. As a relatively new phenomenon, climate change has yet to receive the political attention it deserves. However, the climate justice and climate change movements are gaining momentum on an international scale as both grass roots campaigns and supranational organizations begin to gain influence. However, the most significant and impacting changes come from national and state governments around the world, as they have the political and monetary power to more effectively enforce their proposals.

United States
As it stands today, there is no country-wide legislation with regards to the topic of climate resiliency in the United States. However, in mid February of 2014, President Barack Obama announced his plan to propose a $1 billion “Climate Resilience Fund”. The details of exactly what the fund will seek to accomplish are vague since the fund is only in the stage of being proposed for Congress’s approval in 2015. However, in the speech given the day of the announcement of this proposal, Obama claimed he will request “...new funding for new technologies to help communities prepare for a changing climate, set up incentives to build smarter, more resilient infrastructure. And finally, my administration will work with tech innovators and launch new challenges under our Climate Data Initiative, focused initially on rising sea levels and their impact on the coasts, but ultimately focused on how all these changes in weather patterns are going to have an impact up and down the United States - not just on the coast but inland as well - and how do we start preparing for that.” Obama’s fund incorporates facets of both urban resiliency and human resiliency theories, by necessarily improving communal infrastructure and by focusing on societal preparation to decrease the country’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.

Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix’s large population and extremely dry climate make the city particularly vulnerable to the threats of drought and extreme heat. However, the city has recently incorporated climate change into current (and future) water management and urban design. And by doing so, Phoenix has taken steps to ensure sustainable water supplies and to protect populations that are vulnerable to extreme heat, largely through improving the sustainability and efficiency of communal infrastructure. For example, Phoenix uses renewable surface water supplies and reserves groundwater for use during the instance when extended droughts arise. The city is also creating a task force to redesign the downtown core to minimize the way buildings trap heat and increase local temperatures.

Denver, Colorado
The city of Denver has made recent strides to combat the threat of extreme wildfires and precipitation events. In the year 1996, a fire burned nearly 12,000 acres around Buffalo Creek, which serves as the main source of the city’s water supply. Two months following this devastating wildfire, heavy thunderstorms caused flash floods in the burned area, having the effect of washing sediment into the city’s reservoir. In fact, this event washed more sediment into the reservoir than had accumulated in the 13 years prior. Water treatment costs were estimated to be $20 million over the next decade following the event. To say the least, Denver needed a plan to make sure that the city would not be devastated by future wildfire and flash flood events. DenverWater and the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region are working together to restore more than 40,000 acres of National Forests lands through processes like reforestation, erosion control, and the decommissioning of roads. Further, Denver has installed sensors in the reservoirs in order to monitor the quality of the water and quantity of debris or sediment. These accomplishments will have the effect of building a more resilient Denver, Colorado towards the impending increase of extreme weather events such as wildfire and flooding.

China
China has been rapidly emerging as a new superpower, rivaling the United States. As the most populated country in the world, and one of the leaders of the global economy, China’s response to the impending effects of climate change is of great concern for the entire world. A number of significant changes are expected to affect China as the looming threat of climate change becomes more and more imminent. Here’s just one example; China has experienced a seven-fold increase in the frequency of floods since the 1950’s, rising every decade. The frequency of extreme rainfall has increased and is predicted to continue to increase in the western and southern parts of China. The country is currently undertaking efforts to reduce the threat of these floods (which have the potential effect of completely destroying vulnerable communities), largely focusing on improving the infrastructure responsible for tracking and maintaining adequate water levels. That being said, the country is promoting the extension of technologies for water allocation and water-saving mechanisms. In the country’s National Climate Change Policy Program, one of the goals specifically set out is to enhance the ability to bear the impacts of climate change, as well as to raise the public awareness on climate change. China’s National Climate Change Policy states that it will integrate climate change policies into the national development strategy. In China, this national policy comes in the form of its "Five Year Plans for Economic and Social Development". China’s Five Year Plans serve as the strategic road maps for the country’s development. The goals spelled out in the Five Year Plans are mandatory as government officials are held responsible for meeting the targets.

India
As the world’s second most populous country, India is taking action on a number of fronts in order to address poverty, natural resource management, as well as preparing for the inevitable effects of climate change. India has made significant strides in the energy sector and the country is now a global leader in renewable energy. In 2011 India achieved a record $10.3 billion (USD) in clean energy investments, which the country is now using to fund solar, wind, and hydropower projects around the country. In 2008, India published its National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), which contains several goals for the country. These goals include but are not limited to: covering one third of the country with forests and trees, increasing renewable energy supply to 6% of total energy mix by 2022, and the further maintenance of disaster management. All of the actions work to improve the resiliency of the country as a whole, and this proves to be important because India has an economy closely tied to its natural resource base and climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water, and forestry.