Strengthening resilience
The Metropolitan Climate Change Adaptation Plan (PMAAC), presented to the public in December 2019, aims to integrate climate change adaptation into inter-municipal and municipal planning, and to create a culture of cooperation across the region's various socio-economic sectors and actors, capable of strengthening territorial resilience throughout the territory.
The metropolitan vision behind the plan is to reduce the AML's vulnerability to climate change. The region as a whole must promote adaptation as an instrument for building a more sustainable territory, capable of guaranteeing a more equitable and territorially fairer development model, which affirms its capacity for innovation and its global attractiveness.
During its construction process, 42 workshops, two conferences and numerous scientific studies were held, involving a total of more than two thousand people over two years.
The region's climate present and future will be marked by the process of implementing the measures and actions defined in the plan, in line with the metropolitan commitment to adapt to climate change, signed by all the municipalities in the Lisbon metropolitan region.
Climate Studies
The climate studies carried out as part of the Metropolitan Climate Change Adaptation Plan have identified consistent rises in average and maximum temperatures since 1971, an increasingly regular and intense occurrence of heat waves and droughts and a reduction in overall rainfall volumes, along with changes in seasonal patterns.
In parallel, driven by the increase in the global average temperature of the atmosphere at the surface, the average sea level of the metropolitan coast has been rising as a result of the global thermal expansion of the ocean and the melting of glaciers, ice fields and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and the ice shelves of the polar regions.
The climate projections studied for the Lisbon metropolitan area allowed us to understand that, even in a desirable context of deep and accelerated global decarbonization, to which the AML is deeply committed, the inertia of the global climate system will mean that all recent trends will continue until the end of this century.
This climate trajectory will aggravate the impacts on natural, social and economic systems that are already occurring, resulting in droughts, floods and flash floods, rural and forest fires, extreme heat events, storms and coastal flooding.
It is in this context of climate emergency and recognition of the profound implications that the ongoing changes in the climate will have for the metropolitan territory and its communities that it is imperative to embark on an adaptive path that will make it possible to reduce territorial and sectoral vulnerability by containing and reducing the exposure of people, infrastructures and activities to climate risks, with reference to the precautionary principle, and to prepare communities, local and metropolitan institutions and economic activities to deal with the future climate framework.
The answer to this challenge is set out in the metropolitan adaptation vision. It's a comprehensive vision that was built during the planning process conducted by the AML, but which resulted from the collaboration of the 18 municipalities, numerous central and local administration entities related to strategic adaptation sectors, non-governmental organizations, and representatives of the private, associative and cooperative sectors.
Principles of Adaptation
The metropolitan vision of adaptation to climate change is the product of two sets of fundamental principles that guided the plan and that should structure adaptation to climate change in the Lisbon metropolitan area: principles of action for adaptation and principles of governance and governance of adaptation.
There are six principles for adapting to climate change in the AML, to which the 18 municipalities subscribe: Sustainability, territorial equity, social and territorial justice, partnership, metropolitan governance and local action.
The principles of action stem from the recognition that adaptation is an opportunity to correct economic, social and environmental dysfunctionalities in the Lisbon metropolitan area's development model. The aim is not only to mitigate the impacts of climate change, but also to make the metropolis more resilient. In this context, the strategic framework defined by the plan and the intervention to be operationalized must seek to increase sustainability, equity and social and territorial justice in the metropolis, valuing the services provided by ecosystems, the creation of safe living conditions and the protection of the most vulnerable populations.
Adaptation Objectives
The plan has three main strategic objectives: to protect people and property from climate risks, to create a culture of adaptation across all key sectors and the entire territory, and to create a community that is informed and aware of climate developments in the region and the impacts of the changes.
The objectives take into account the challenges of governance and climate governance that led to them being drawn up, namely the recognition of the need to promote research, monitoring and evaluation of the climate and its impacts, the institutional capacity-building of territorial communities for the challenges of climate change and adaptation, and the adoption of a transversal culture of adaptation in the various municipalities and strategic sectors.
Adaptation Agenda
The Metropolitan Adaptation Agenda is the strategic framework for the Metropolitan Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change, aimed at guiding adaptation to climate change in the coming decades, specifically in response to the four priority climate risks: high temperatures, rising sea levels, droughts, and floods.
For each of these risks, an articulated framework of objectives - measures - types of actions has been defined, which should be implemented on a sectoral and territorial basis.
Tools to Facilitate Adaptation
The metropolitan sectoral adaptation agendas focus on each of the nine sectors identified by the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change 2020, which are considered fundamental for promoting climate adaptation in Portugal.
Within a framework of co-promotion with the sectoral actors who were involved in drawing up the plan, a strategic sectoral adaptation framework was defined, which includes not only the identification of adaptation measures and actions, but also their assessment in terms of effectiveness and temporal adequacy in the face of the scenario evolution of the metropolitan climate.
The plan also includes a manual for integrating adaptation options into spatial planning, which aims to enhance the role of territorial management instruments in the pursuit of adaptation to climate change in the Lisbon metropolitan area.
Adaptation Implementation Processes
The process of drawing up the plan made it possible to define a strategic territorial and sectoral framework for metropolitan adaptation, and to equip the region with a set of tools to support climate adaptation planning in a wide variety of areas.
Based on this frame of reference, the implementation of the plan and the guiding instruments for climate adaptation in the Lisbon metropolitan area should be pursued both at local level, by the municipalities, and at sectoral level, by the various strategic players.
Declining the metropolitan strategic planning process to the municipal level is extremely important, as it will make it possible to define the most effective and efficient measures to achieve climate adaptation, while adapting to the specific territorial, environmental and socio-economic realities.
Only on this scale will it be possible to initiate participatory adaptation processes that, among other gains, empower and sensitize local communities to metropolitan climate challenges.
