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Trade-Offs in Adaptation Planning: Protecting Public Interest Environmental Values

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 11:36 authored by Foerster, AC, Macintosh, A, Janet McDonaldJanet McDonald
Like many issues in environmental law and governance, climate change adaptation planning involves difficult policy trade-offs. Decision-makers must balance competing public and private interests and short- and long-term concerns against a background of considerable uncertainty and complexity. One of the classic challenges of environmental governance is to establish laws and other institutions which support long-term decision-making in the public interest and this is equally a challenge for adaptation planning. This article explores Australian approaches to such policy trade-offs in the context of spatial planning for bushfire and coastal hazards. These examples illustrate the difficulties of considering cumulative, longer term environmental impacts of adaptation measures in the face of immediate and known risks to existing private property and infrastructure, and the way in which current decision-making downplays these public values. The authors identify institutional factors that help to explain this bias and propose strategies to improve protection of public interest environmental values in adaptation planning.

History

Publication title

Journal of Environmental Law

Volume

27

Pagination

459-487

ISSN

0952-8873

Department/School

Faculty of Law

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

Copyright 2015 The Author

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in law and legal studies

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