Supporting climate resilient development planning − a dynamic adaptive pathways based approach and an illustrative case from Cork City, Ireland

To achieve climate resilient societies, climate adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development (AMD) are all necessary. The concept of “climate resilient development pathways” (CRDP) recognizes this as intertwined challenges. However, no systematic approach exists for the creation and appraisal of CRDP that integrates adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development over time, and addresses the interactions between these policy objectives. Building upon Dynamic Adaptive Pathways Planning (DAPP), this paper presents a decision analysis approach for integrating CRDP policy objectives in Climate Resilient Adaptive Pathways Planning, or CRDAPP. Key additions in this approach are: a) using visioning to design CRD strategies for managing pathways complexity; b) introducing target points for sustainable development and climate mitigation action setting, to help sequence measures into alternative pathways, alongside traditional performance thresholds; and c) defining types of adaptation, mitigation and development interactions to systematically evaluate actions and pathways. We test the approach in an illustrative case study in Cork City, Ireland. The CRDAPP steps are carried out for the city, with multiple pathways designed and critical decisions over time identified. The resulting CRDAPP analysis provides insights into the range of options for Cork on how to combine mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable development actions over time, to work toward different future states of the city. CRDAPP can support decisionmakers to better align adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development action into their planning processes.