Book review Free

The last few years have seen hundreds of books published annually on climate change and its implications, making the field somewhat crowded and the audience somewhat spoiled for choice. Providing a bespoke commentary from a particular perspective or for a specific profession or social group is one way to differentiate your offering from the crowd. Hence, we are regaled with titles on climate change and politics (e.g. Harris, 2007), climate change and ethics (e.g. Garvey, 2008) and the enticingly distinctive Global Warming and Other Bollocks (Feldman and Marks, 2009). The book under review is targeted at the climate change–spatial planning nexus and ‘aims to map out the main challenges for spatial planning that have been created or amplified by climate change’.

With each part of the book prefaced with an introductory commentary, the book presents a collection of 23 contributions from over 30 authors reporting on a wide range of challenges, analysis techniques, perspectives and studies. The volume is well structured with sections on (a) the challenge of climate change, (b) strategic planning responses and (c) implementation, governance and engagement. Although printed in black and white throughout, images, diagrams and so on are of excellent quality (although a couple do challenge the reader's ability to distinguish between multiple shades of grey). One small grumble would be that the assertion in the book's preface that the literature on climate change and spatial planning is limited, does not stand up to close scrutiny – the potential contribution of planning as both a profession and an intervention is attracting significant research funding and the associated literature, while young, is both rich in perspective, and vibrant in debate.

With an explicitly stated focus on planning and a desire to ‘open new channels of shared learning among researchers, practitioners, educators and decision makers’ this is a book for professionals and perhaps postgraduate students. Not one to be read from cover to cover, I suspect readers will perhaps be attracted to acquire the book by one or two of the chapters and then find other topics of interest. Those who do venture beyond topics of immediate interest to them will be rewarded. Particular highlights are the chapters on ‘Patterns of settlement’ by Nick Green and John Handley, and a very informative and concise piece on ‘Transport policies and climate change’ by David Banister and Jillian Anable.

The book achieves its ambition – but only for a limited set of contexts and examples. The extent to which the various contributions speak to a spatial planning agenda is mixed with, for example, chapters on flood risk methodologies and transitioning away from oil providing excellent material on their respective topics, but not much of substance on the implications for spatial planning. In this context, one gets the feeling that the editors have allowed the contributors too much latitude, generating something that has the feel of a collection of conference papers rather than an attempt to cover the field or even focus on pressing or particularly challenging issues. This is unfortunate, as the quality of the writing and argument in many of the papers is both impressive and convincing, providing opportunities for integration across contributions which have not been pursued.

Topics covered include wind energy, construction, flooding, transport, as well as scenario development and use, and development patterns with case studies drawn from a number of countries including Canada, the USA, Sweden, the Aegean Islands, Australia, the Netherlands and the UK. However, the real strength of the studies contained in the book is the breadth and depth of analysis provided on the relationships between policy, governance and practical intervention in the context of responses to climate change. How the relationships between national and local, public and commercial, and governance and governed, create niches of opportunity where cost–benefit fractions are beneficial to enough stakeholders for change to be both desirable and feasible. Perhaps surprisingly given the rather fractured nature of the book as a whole, the various contributions, when taken together, do convey a persuasive case for spatial planning to be more front-and-centre in society's attempts to combat climate change.

Planning for Climate Change delivers a useful and welcomingly broad selection of case studies which reflect the various types of relationship between climate change and spatial planning. The contributions are often rich in data and information without being overly technical. Indeed, much of the material would make for an accessible and engaging read for the general reader with an interest in climate change. However, those wishing for a more systematic treatment of the field will perhaps want to wait for the forthcoming Spatial Planning and Climate Change by one of this book's contributors, Elizabeth Wilson, and her colleague Jake Piper.