Aiming for safe and secure city adapted to climate change from an international viewpoint

Yokohama has pioneered the efforts to develop adaptation measures to climate change impacts ahead of the national government and other local governments. In March 2014, the city revised the “Yokohama City Action Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures” and announced promotion of adaptation measures. In June 2017, the city formulated the “Yokohama City Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.” The adaptation strategy sets out five basic strategies including “promoting measures to protect citizens’ lives and property” and clarified climate change impacts to help citizens understand them, dividing them into four fields. Adding a perspective of adaptation to the policies for each field, the city is making cross-sectional efforts and striving to develop Yokohama into a “safe, secure and sustainable city.” We interviewed Tsubasa Tomita and Kentaro Oshima at the Planning and Coordination Section, Global Warming Strategy Division of Yokohama City about the road from the revision of the action plan to the formulation of the adaptation strategy, their pursuit of “Yokohama-ness” to fit the actual situation of the region and a course of action to take.

IPCC Session held in Yokohama led to the promotion of adaptation measures.

Is there any particular event that led to Yokohama City to revise the action plan and announce promotion of adaptation measures ahead of the national government and other local governments in 2014?

Yes. It is the 38th Session of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) held in Yokohama in March 2014. Climate change adaptation was the main agenda item. It was the first IPCC Session held in Japan. The session approved the report of the Working Group II of the Fifth Assessment Report. Taking advantage of the opportunity, we reviewed the adaptation-related measures and policies the city had implemented, revised the action plan and redefined the adaptation measures. Specifically, we have decided to work on ▽heatstroke prevention and reduction, ▽prevention and reduction of damage from heavy rain and ▽promotion of monitoring in cooperation with citizens.

We could take such prompt action because the whole city government had started working towards measures against global warming early on. For instance, Yokohama was the only local government in the country that set up the Global Warming Strategy Division as an organization equivalent to a bureau in 2011. As of 2014, there were several prefectures promoting the adaptation measures but, we believe, Yokohama was the first among cities, towns or villages.

You formulated the adaptation strategy in June 2017 after revising the action plan. Will you explain the details?

The adaptation strategy covers a wider range of fields than those for adaptation measures in the action plan. The strategy also examines the impacts and measures more deeply. The adaptation strategy consists of four chapters, ▽Background, ▽Basic matters, ▽Sector-specific effects and policies and ▽Policies for cross-sector measures; together with reference materials.

As background behind the formulation, the strategy provides great disasters considered to result from climate change at home and abroad and international and national trends. It also quotes data from the Japan Meteorological Agency. The data shows that annual average temperature of Yokohama rose by 1.8°C over the past 100 years and that the temperature is expected to rise by about 3°C and the number of days with a maximum temperature of 30°C or more to increase by 40 days a year from the present till the end of the 21st century. To respond to climate change impacts and avoid or minimize damage, we have laid out five basic strategies to be implemented by citizens, businesses and the municipality in coordination and cooperation. The chapter on sector-specific effects and policies lists four areas, ▽Agriculture / natural environment, ▽Storm/flood damage and sediment disasters, ▽Heatstroke and infectious diseases, and ▽Industry / economic activity; by choosing the items that can affect Yokohama from the seven sectors and items of an impact assessment by the national government. The area of agriculture / natural environment is further divided into agriculture, water environment / resources and natural ecosystem. The cross-sector measures are ▽Promotion of climate change monitoring, ▽Promotion of citizen and business efforts, and ▽Promotion of inter-city cooperation in Japan and overseas.

The basic strategies reflect “Yokohama-ness.”

Please tell me what is characteristic of Yokohama in the adaptation strategy.

Five basic strategies are set out in the chapter of basic matters. That is the most characteristic. We have tried to convey clearly to the citizens what we will focus on from what standpoint in an effort to make Yokohama a “safe, secure and sustainable city” while exhibiting Yokohama-ness, the defining characteristics of Yokohama. The five basic strategies are (1) Promote measures to protect citizens’ lives and property, (2) Improve city resilience, (3) Incorporate a perspective of adaptation into city measures, (4) Create a virtuous environmental-economic circle by promoting adaptation measures, and (5) Promote collaboration between cities in Japan and overseas.

Yokohama is a big city with a population of 3.73 million. It is important that citizens, businesses and the municipality work closely together with the philosophy of self-help, mutual assistance and public help. To improve the city resilience, disaster preparedness needs to be strengthened particularly around Yokohama Station, where the urban functions are concentrated in the area at a low elevation. As for inter-city cooperation, we will cooperate with the members of the nine prefecture and city summit meeting aimed at addressing wide-area problems in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Utilizing international networks, such as C40 (40 Cities Climate Leadership Group) and ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), we will enhance information sharing and cooperation as an international city. This way, we believe, the adaptation strategy reflects Yokohama-ness.

How are you going to encourage citizens for the efforts requiring cooperation with citizens and businesses?

First, we must make the citizens aware of the importance of climate change adaptation. Before formulating the adaptation strategy, we conducted a survey of citizens and businesses in 2016. 52% of the respondents knew the term “adaptation.” Of those respondents, 21% knew the definition. According to an opinion poll conducted around the same time by the national government, 48% know the term “adaptation” and 4% of them knew the meaning. We thought Yokohama citizens were highly conscious of the issue.

We had been tackling disaster preparedness and heatstroke prevention even before we formulated the strategy. What is important now is how to reflect the viewpoint of climate change adaptation. We are going to add a perspective of adaptation to the policies carried out separately for individual fields in the past in the light of the adaptation strategy. We will also make an effort to deepen the citizens’ understanding by more effective information dissemination and awareness raising.

The national government classifies climate change impacts into seven whereas Yokohama divides them into four. How did you assess the impacts?

What we kept in mind when conducting the impact assessment and classifying the fields was to make the result as clear to understand as possible for citizens and businesses. Based on the seven fields in which the national government assessed impacts (agriculture, water environment / water resources, natural ecosystem, natural disaster / coastal areas, health, industrial/economic activities, and people’s living / urban life) and items, we chose the fields in which Yokohama is subject to the current or potential impacts after discussing with relevant departments in the city government. We provided those relevant departments with information from the national government and the National Institute for Environmental Studies and asked them to evaluate it together with the technical information they had.

For example, the national government classifies agriculture, water environment / water resources and natural ecosystem as three separate fields whereas Yokohama put them together into one area of agriculture and natural environment. Yokohama, which is close to a large area of consumption, is one of the leading agricultural producers in Kanagawa Prefecture and the largest producer of Komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach) in the country. There is concern about a possible decline in quality due to high temperatures. The category of health by the national government has a broad scope. It includes summer heat, infections and others (e.g., atmospheric pollution). We limit it to heatstroke and infections, which are familiar to citizens.

For international inter-city collaboration, what efforts are you making specifically?

Our sister city, Vancouver in Canada, is an advanced municipality in the environment. The city had already mapped out an adaptation strategy when we were working on ours. We asked them to review our adaptation strategy and said “The structure is good. It will be made even better if you use more diagrams and charts.” Yokohama as well as Tokyo participates in C40. In C40, big cities across the world are tackling climate change. At the meeting held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in 2017, member cities’ adaptation measures, such as those against flooding and summer heat, were presented. Yokohama’s flood prevention measures received responses.

Adding a perspective of global warming countermeasures (mitigation and adaptation) to all the policies

How are the global warming countermeasures (mitigation and adaptation) defined in the policies of Yokohama City? Did you consider other plans, such as urban planning master plan and disaster prevention plan, when formulating the adaptation strategy?

Yokohama City’s global warming countermeasures are clarified in the action plan. This plan is interlinked with the city’s general plan (medium-term 4-year plan), the environment management plan, the urban planning master plan and many other relevant plans. For example, the details of global warming countermeasures in the medium-term 4-year plan correspond with those in the action plan and adaptation measures are also stated. At the moment, we are revising the action plan and exploring ways of integrating the adaptation strategy. We are discussing an indicator for progress management and promotion of flood prevention measures utilizing green infrastructure (various functions natural ecosystems have, such as those to prevent disasters and create landscapes) and aiming to finish the revision by the autumn of 2018.

In the adaptation strategy, the policies the city is implementing in each field are classified as cross-sector measures from a perspective of climate change adaptation. Those measures cover a wider scope of fields than the adaptation measures defined in the action plan. When formulating the adaptation strategy, we tried to maintain consistency with other relevant plans in each field. If any policy is closely related to climate change, we will promote it after adding a perspective of mitigation or adaptation and incorporate it into other relevant plans in each field when formulating or revising such a plan.

Is there any measure that is both mitigation and adaptation?

We are working on feasibility studies of a virtual power plant (VPP) and demand response (DR), which are mitigation measures, as part of Yokohama Smart City Project (YSCP) in cooperation with private businesses. DR is a system for customers to reduce or adjust their power consumption at the request of an electric utility in case power supply is likely to be depleted. VPP is a network of rechargeable batteries installed in an area and used as a single power plant by integrated control. VPP can be used for DR in normal conditions and as an emergency power supply in case of urban flooding due to a torrential downpour. In FY 2016 and FY 2017, we installed rechargeable batteries at 36 elementary and junior high schools designated as a disaster response center in the city.

Those measures are expected to serve as measures for energy supply and demand management in the future when the atmospheric temperatures continue to rise due to climate change and increased use of air-conditioners is required as part of adaptation measures, which boosts power demand.

What procedures did you go through in the city government until formulating the adaptation strategy? Have you used as a reference any plan of the national government or other local governments?

To formulate the strategy, we had section manager meetings of the city government on adaptation measures three times between August and December 2016. We carried out the impact assessment while discussing with the department in charge of each field and seeking advice from specialists of the Council for Yokohama-shi environment creation. In February 2017, we came up with a draft. After a public comment period, the adaptation strategy was established in June 2017. We hear that some local governments had difficulty in coordination. In the case of Yokohama City, things went on quite smoothly. I reckon, that was because we had been tackling global warming countermeasures before then and adaptation measures were already defined in the action plan.

We used the adaptation plan and guidelines of the national government as a reference. We found the impact assessment and the planning process particularly useful. Kanagawa Prefecture included impact assessment and policies in its global warming countermeasure plan. As it covers Yokohama City, we also used the data as a reference. In addition, we referred to the adaptation policy of Kawasaki City, Yokohama’s neighbor, and data of Saitama Prefecture, a pioneer in this issue.

I have asked you two questions together. Now, Mr. Oshima and Mr. Tomita, I will ask each of you separately. Please tell me what you think about participating in the formulation of the adaptation strategy.

Oshima: The adaptation strategy contains a lot of characteristics of Yokohama City. While working on the formulation, I learned about the topography and features of Yokohama. I didn’t know that there are eight river basins in the city, including the Tsurumi-gawa river basin.

Tomita: We have clarified Yokohama City’s policies based on the fields and items of the national government. I found that we had been working on measures for almost all the items. I was surprised that there were so many measures related to climate change adaptation.