Local-Level Resilience and Climate Change

Climate change is one of the most important challenges facing governments in the 21st century with an important sub-national dimension in the resultant policy debates.  Indeed, the Local Government Association requires that climate change is at the centre of Local Authorities’ vision for their communities.  Yet there are many varying interpretations about how best to address these issues. 

In parallel to this discussion, the term resilience is increasingly being utilised within the study of public policy to depict how individuals, communities and organisations can adapt, cope, and ‘bounce back’ when faced with external shocks.  These include economic recession and cuts in public expenditure but also climate change. In focussing on the local dimensions of the resilience debate, this research seeks to provide useful insights into how the challenges facing local authorities in the UK can be reformulated and reinterpreted.

This research project examines the local governance of climate change, and investigates the concept of ‘resilience’ as a tool with which to identify policy solutions to the problems posed by climate change.  framed by the following questions:

• How might we best build resilient local government in relation to climate change?

• What role can communities play within this process?

The project has been funded by the Northumbria University Research Fund.