Building a Legal Framework for Adaptation to Climate Change on the Sound

The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) published a new White Paper earlier this month titled Climate Change and the PUget Sound: Building the legal Framework for Adaptation. The report offers a legal framework that is meant to "enable policymakers in the Puget Sound Basin to identify and adopt environmentally protective and socially equitable adaptation strategies."

To set the stage for deciding whether a proposed strategy is worth pursuing, this framework offers a list of questions that should be asked:

Does the proposed Adaptation strategy:
+ Acknowledge uncertainty in the models or projections of the climate change impact?
+ Increase the resilience of natural systems and human communitite?
+ Rely as much as possible on natural infrastructure to buffer the impacts of climate change?
+ Incorporate principles of fairness and reduce personal and community risk?
+ Lead to proactive an precautious actions?
+ Have multiple benefits for other sectors or benefit climate change mitigation efforts?
+ Consider the long-term time-frame?
+ Avoid maladaptive outcomes or strategies that focus only on the short-term or forclose future options?
+ Maximize the use of existing legislation or legal tools?

The framework highlights three overarching themes of climate change that should be addressed:
Changes to the Hydrologic Cycle, Sea Level Rise, and Increased Average Temperature and Extreme Weather Events and offers specific recommendations for each that can be pursued.

This white paper is a great example of the detail and flexibility that should be used regarding specif law and policy decisions made for the vast array of watersheds across the nation and their varying specific needs for responding to climate change.

Click here to read the full white paper.