Climate change poses a serious challenge to sustainable urban development worldwide. In Sweden, climate change work at the city level emerged in 1996 and has long had a focus on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. City planners' "adaptation turn" is recent and still ongoing. This paper presents a meta-evaluation of Swedish municipal adaptation approaches, and how they relate to institutional structures at different levels. The results show that although increasing efforts are being put into the identification of barriers to adaptation planning, in contrast, there is little assessment or systematization of the actual adaptation measures and mainstreaming strategies taken. On this basis, opportunities for advancing a more comprehensive approach to sustainable adaptation planning at both the local and institutional level are discussed.

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Planning for Climatic Extremes and Variability: A Review of Swedish Municipalities' Adaptation Responses

The scientific community recognizes that urban green areas play an important role in supporting human wellbeing. Green spaces are used differently by citizens accordingly to their age, gender, education, or lifestyle. During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic period in 2020, public green areas were closed due to the limitations imposed by social distancing in Italy and people were forced to stay at home. The aim of this research was to investigate the importance of public green areas in the life of the population in relation to the limits imposed during the first lockdown in Italy. A participatory approach was used, and an online questionnaire focused on people’s perceptions about the public attendance in green areas and their main uses pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 emergency period was administrated randomly to the adult population. The questions focused on the habit, frequency, and duration of park visits and about the individual perceptions and feelings about the green areas close (maximum 200 m distance) to their residences. A total of 3286 responses were obtained and analyzed at national and regional levels (Piemonte). In order to have a general national overview, a basic descriptive statistic was applied using all answers, elaborated in the form of percentages. At the regional level, questions were selected and compared to determine if answers were in related. Statistical analyses with chi-square tests and correspondence analyses were performed. The results indicated that the social distancing period for COVID-19 containment in Italy influenced perceptions about urban green areas. The importance of having outdoor green spaces was highlighted and an increase in interest about urban green areas was observed. Future planning strategies will have to consider the need of designing urban green areas for having more livable cities.

Perceptions of urban green areas during the social distancing period for covid-19 containment in Italy

Exploring the interconnections between gender, health and nature

Mitigation measures, especially municipal energy infrastructure transformation, have been the focus of Sweden’s climate change responses. Recently, adaptation measures have grown in priority and planners are challenged to integrate mitigation and adaptation. In our study, we observe how synergies and conflicts in adaptation, mitigation, and other social and economic dimensions of spatial planning are grappled with in municipalities. We draw primarily from interviews with municipal planners and regional agencies as well as a review of policy documents. Our conclusion is that municipalities could be assisted in their climate change planning by stronger regional and national involvement.

Adapting to climate change in Swedish Planning Practice

The conference Equality, Growth and Sustainability – Do They Mix? was made possible through initiatives, joint efforts and collaboration between actors representing JAMI, VINNOVA, FAS, Thematic Group on Equality, NIKK, Tema Genus and Forum for Gender Studies and Equality at Linkoping University.The conference created an opportunity for academics, practitioners as well as policy makers to meet and discuss if and how questions of equality, growth and sustainability can be reconciled in organisations and implemented in general practice. 15 years after the Beijing Platform for Action the conference provided academics, policy makers and practitioners with an international and interdisciplinary forum for exchange.The purpose was to explore and disseminate knowledge and experiences on gender equality, gender mainstreaming, diversity management, growth and sustainability, inclusion and equal opportunities. The ambition was to discuss these key concepts and issues from an intersectional perspective, and in theory and practice, in order to rethink and find new ways to move on. The conference provided new research results, policy discussions and presented new ideas on how to advance the practical and theoretical work through collaborative/joint ventures between academia and society.The conference consituted a mix of presentations and discussions with the 165 participants, from all over the world. The interactive conference format contained eight interactive workshops and eleven parallell paper sessions, see appendix. The paper sessions contained academic paper presentetions while the workshops offered forums for listening practioners’ presentations and taking part in discussions.The four key note speakers, as well as the concluding panel, addressed and discussed the conference topics from their view points as policy makers, researchers and/or practitioners. Key note speakers included Ms Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission; Mieke Verloo, Professor of Comparative Politics and Inequality Issues at Radboud University Nijmegen; Jeff Hearn, Professor in Gender Studies with a focus on critical studies on men at Linkoping university and Tryggvi Hallgrimsson from the Center of Gender Equality, Iceland.The workshop was hosted by Linkoping University´s Forum for Gender Studies and Equality.Funding was provided by JAMI at Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research, Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems/VINNOVA, Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research/FAS, Thematic Group on Equality, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Linkoping University, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions/SALAR/SKL, and Wenner-Gren Foundations.The majority of the paper authors have chosen to contribute to this document, which presents the proceedings from the conference.

Equality, Growth and Sustainability : Do They Mix?

This article elaborates on and discusses gendered dimensions of climate change response in Swedish municipalities. There are indications that attitudes and behaviour to the environment and climate change are gendered. This evidence together with our own work further indicates that gender awareness is most probably an important influence on how municipalities respond to climate change. The aim of this study was to investigate if and how gendered aspects of climate change response are integrated in the Swedish response to climate change. The potential causal relationships between a high level of awareness of the gendered aspects of climate change and the levels of climate change response were investigated. We asked whether there is a positive relationship between gender awareness and the quality of the communities' climate change policies and practice. Indications of such a relationship prompt a change in research priorities – paying more attention to gender – and in subsequent policy developments.

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Måns Andersson

Papers

Gendered Dimensions of Climate Change Response in Swedish Municipalities