Problem: Global warming has emerged as one of the new century's top planning challenges. But it is far from clear how state and local governments in the United States can best address climate change through planning. Purpose: As of 2008, 29 states had prepared some sort of climate change plan, and more than 170 local governments had joined the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign that requires that a plan be developed. This article analyzes this first generation of climate change plans and seeks to assess the goals being set, the measures included or left out, issues surrounding implementation, and the basic strengths and weaknesses of state and local climate change planning to date. Methods: I conducted this research by analyzing planning documents as well as interviewing state and local officials by telephone. I analyzed the plans of three types of governments: all states with planning documents on climate change; cities with populations of over 500,000 that are members of the CCP campaign; and selected smaller cities that are CCP members. Results and conclusions: Most plans set emissions-reduction goals, establish emission inventories, green public sector operations, and recommend a range of other measures. Many recent plans have been developed through extensive stakeholder processes and present very detailed lists of recommendations with quantified emissions benefits. But emissions-reduction goals vary widely, many proposed actions are voluntary, few resources have been allocated, and implementation of most measures has not yet taken place. Most plans do not address adaptation to a changing climate. Officials see rapidly growing public awareness of the issue and general support for climate change planning, but reluctance to change personal behavior. Takeaway for practice: Future climate change planning should (a) set goals that can adequately address the problem; (b) establish long-term planning frameworks in which progress toward these goals can be monitored on a regular basis and actions revised as needed; (c) include the full range of measures needed to reduce and adapt to climate change; (d) ensure implementation of recommended actions through commitment of resources, revised regulation, incentives for reducing emissions, and other means; and (e) develop strategies to deepen public awareness of the need for fundamental changes in behavior, for example regarding motor vehicle use. Research support: This research was supported by the University of California, Davis Department of Environmental Design.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) addresses the challenge of meeting the growing demand for food, fibre and fuel, despite the changing climate and fewer opportunities for agricultural expansion on additional lands. CSA focuses on contributing to economic development, poverty reduction and food security; maintaining and enhancing the productivity and resilience of natural and agricultural ecosystem functions, thus building natural capital; and reducing trade-offs involved in meeting these goals. Current gaps in knowledge, work within CSA, and agendas for interdisciplinary research and science-based actions identified at the 2013 Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture (Davis, CA, USA) are described here within three themes: (1) farm and food systems, (2) landscape and regional issues and (3) institutional and policy aspects. The first two themes comprise crop physiology and genetics, mitigation and adaptation for livestock and agriculture, barriers to adoption of CSA practices, climate risk management and energy and biofuels (theme 1); and modelling adaptation and uncertainty, achieving multifunctionality, food and fishery systems, forest biodiversity and ecosystem services, rural migration from climate change and metrics (theme 2). Theme 3 comprises designing research that bridges disciplines, integrating stakeholder input to directly link science, action and governance.

This article establishes a framework for thinking about sustainable development in the metropolitan context by investigating the origins of the sustainability concept and its meanings when applied to urban development, surveying historical approaches to planning the urban region, and analyzing ways in which a context can be created for regional sustainability planning. Sustainability is seen as requiring a holistic, long-term planning approach, as well as certain general policy directions such as compact urban form, reductions in automobile use, protection of ecosystems, and improved equity. Based on the experience of three sample regions, the article suggests a long-term strategic approach in which vision statements, coalition building, institutional development, intergovernmental incentive frameworks, indicators, public involvement, and social learning help create a regional context in which sustainable development is increasingly possible.