City welcomes public input for Climate Ready Oahu, the isle’s first adaptation strategy

The city is inviting the public to participate in two rounds of virtual meetings to help shape “Climate Ready Oahu,” the first-ever, climate adaptation strategy for the island.

The climate adaptation strategy, which lays out how communities have to change to protect themselves from larger storms and other impacts resulting from climate change is different from the already completed Climate Action Plan, which lays out the path to reducing carbon pollution from fossil fuels that are the cause of global warming.

It was identified by the community as a key priority, and listed as Action No. 28 in the Oahu Resilience Strategy.

“As an elected leader and a father, I take climate change seriously and want to do everything I can to help to protect our residents from climate risks coming our way,” said Mayor Kirk Caldwell in a news release. “As we work on COVID-19 response and recovery efforts, we still need to keep an eye on the horizon and take the steps now to reduce risk, and help us thrive as a community for years to come.”

The historic fires on the U.S. West Coast, unprecedented hurricane activity in the Gulf Coast, and resurgence of drought conditions in Hawaii, officials said, have all put climate change risk back on the radar for residents even as global populations continue to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Residents are invited to participate in an online survey, and to learn more about climate change and the project at climatereadyoahu.org.

They may also weigh in on the strategy through several community-wide learning sessions scheduled this week and in November.

Virtual engagements will be held (via Zoom) at the following times and dates:

Round 1

>> From 2-3:30 p.m. on Wednesday and 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday; and 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday.

Round 2

>> From 6-7:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, , 10:30 a.m. to noon on Nov. 6 and 10:30 a.m. to noon on Nov. 7.

“This Climate Ready Oahu strategy is essentially a roadmap to living safely on this island, but it will only be as strong as the community knowledge that helps draw it,” said Josh Stanbro, the city’s Chief Resilience Officer, in the news release. “Just like COVID-19, climate change is an all-hands-on-deck moment—and one agency or one community can’t do it alone. We are hoping to learn what the community wants to protect, and the best way to do it together as we face mounting storms, floods, and heatwaves.”

Climate Ready Oahu will outline steps to:

>> Developing global heating hazard risk assessments and exposure maps;

>> Evaluating global heating impacts on infrastructure, assets, and populations;

>> Developing climate change approaches for the Development and Sustainable Communities Plans, department functional plans, and the Multi-Hazard Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan;

>> Determining concrete steps for communities and City agencies to take that address high priority risks; and

>> Ensuring that climate change and equity concerns are integrated into decision-making processes.

Multiple climate risk data are also now available on one map viewer via the Climate Ready O‘ahu Web Explorer, created by the Resilience Office and Honolulu Land Information System (HoLIS) Division of the Department of Planning and Permitting.

“Island-wide adaptation strategies are critical for protecting communities that are experiencing climate impacts now. While reducing our greenhouse gas emissions will lessen future consequences, our lack of collective action up to now means that we are locked into the negative impacts from our past emissions for the next few decades,” said Dr. Victoria Keener, Chair of the City Climate Change Commission, in the release. “Get involved! The many opportunities for public input and participation in shaping this plan will help ensure that the burdens and benefits of climate adaptation are more equitably shared.”

The Climate Ready Oahu adaptation strategy is expected to be completed in September 2021.