NOAA publishes Centering Equity in Climate Resilience Planning and Action: A Practitioner’s Guide by Clara Fang
This guide focuses on Climate Service Practitioners who come from many sectors (interlocking circles on the left). Practitioners must draw upon a variety of skills, both individually and through support from others (central box), in order to serve communities where they work (circle on right).
Editor's note: originally published in a press release by NOAA
On October 31, 2022, NOAA and partners released Implementing the Steps to Resilience: A Practitioner's Guide, a handbook for national climate resilience. The book, with accompanying online resources, is designed to help climate adaptation practitioners work with local governments and community organizations to incorporate climate risk into equitable, long-term decision-making. With this user-friendly guide, resilience and adaptation professionals can learn how to implement the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit’s Steps to Resilience.
“This guide is a critical step towards scaling up resilience in every U.S. community,” said Rick Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA Administrator. “Building a Climate Ready Nation means training a large national workforce of adaptation and resilience practitioners.”
The guide is the centerpiece of NOAA Climate Program Office’s strategy for scaling up and accelerating resilience-building in communities across the nation and is a foundational next step in the NOAA Climate-Smart Communities Initiative. According to David Herring, Communication, Education, and Engagement Division Chief in the Climate Program Office, “The initiative intends to support the training of climate service practitioners to develop ready-to-fund, equity-based adaptation plans that can be implemented in communities throughout the U.S.”
Practitioners who use this systematic guidance in different communities may compare progress toward climate resilience, thus accelerating the evolution of best practices. To supplement the Practitioner’s Guide, NOAA and partners have created four other guides to scaling up adaptation and resilience planning nationwide. Switzer Fellow Clara Fang was the lead author of the accompanying report Centering Equity in Climate Resilience Planning and Action: a Practitioner’s Guide. This 126 page report was produced in partnership with Antioch Center for Climate Resilience and Community Preparedness.
All five of the guides are available for free in the NOAA Institutional Repository:
- Implementing the Steps to Resilience: A Practitioner's Guide
- Ready-to-Fund Resilience supports practitioners’ work within the climate resilience funding and finance system.
- Centering Equity in Climate Resilience Planning and Action: a Practitioner’s Guide recommends equity principles to apply during adaptation and resilience planning.
- Moving from Faith-based to Tested Adaptation Process and Approach: How Will We Know We’re Adapting? emphasizes evaluation and measurement of adaptation practices.
- Incorporating Nature-based Solutions into Community Climate Adaptation Planning uses the “Steps to Resilience” framework to explore nature-based adaptation.
