"Entry Points" in Integrating Climate Risk and Adaptation Asessment into Development Planning: Reflections from Semarang and Tarakan City, Indonesia

Abstract

One of the most challenging issues in adapting to the possible impact of climate change is whether government able to find and set an appropriate and balance policy between proposed adaptation actions and other development agenda; moreover about how to translate scientific findings into suitable policy. This paper aims to share experience from two cities in Indonesia which are trying to integrate the process and result of climate risk and adaptation assessment (scientific process) into the city spatial and non-spatial development planning system, i.e. Semarang City in Java Island and Tarakan City in Kalimantan Island. The experiences being shared here came from the involvement of authors in the action research for Tarakan City which aims to integrate adaptation actions to development plan and planning studio for Semarang Municipality which develops Local Action Plan on Climate Change Adaptation. By far, it can be concluded that local government on both cities still not entirely sure on considering the impact of climate change, even more there are still doubts and misconception about the climate change adaptation concept itself. However, basically local governments are open and welcome the rationale for integrating climate risk and adaptation assessment into their spatial and non-spatial development plan. In addition, each city has their own way to manage the interaction between scientific and policy realm; i.e. in Semarang City through mechanism called Shared Learning Dialogue (SLD) and in Tarakan City through closed collaborative works between researcher and government officials. Both strengths and weakness of each approach will be elaborated further in this paper. Finally, this paper will offer the entry points to integrate climate change adaptation into spatial and non-spatial plan development system in Indonesia, based on reflections from both cases, as well as how it may function elsewhere.