Facilitating Climate Change Action Across Planning Systems

Abstract

In-depth interviews with Australian urban planners identified barriers to and facilitators of climate change action across Janin Rivolin’s model of planning systems, categorizing them against Healey’s theory of transformations in urban governance. Insights from everyday planning practice reveal four factors necessary to transform urban planning systems for effective climate change action: (1) planning education institutions and professional associations must appropriately update professional capacity requirements and opportunities; (2) professional capacity and culture change needs to be enabled; (3) material resources must be facilitated; to (4) design and implement effective urban planning policy instruments for climate change action.

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC 2023) sixth assessment report outlines the need for significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (emissions) to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change. Cities account for more than 70 percent of total energy use and resulting emissions (UN-HABITAT 2022), thus are critical places to take action on climate change (IPCC 2022). Urban planning as a discipline and practice, seeks to control the use and development of land for managing the activities, spatial form and overall functionality of cities (Hall and Tewdwr-Jones 2019) and is influenced by multiple formal and informal actors. While many of its activities have contributed to climate change (such as car-dominated cities; design of cities with intense use of fossil fuels), as an institution, urban planning has the capacity across multiple scales (e.g., local, state, and national) to influence the production of the built environment and can thus play a key role in the transformation of cities to address climate change. Some cities and regions have begun to address climate change by integrating its consideration into existing land use and development policies (e.g., Burns, Flood, and O’Dwyer 2022), or through projects to address specific problems that arise from climate change, such as sea level rise (e.g., W.H. Butler, Deyle, and Mutnansky 2016).

Despite urban planning’s increasingly recognized capacity to contribute to climate change action (Meerow and Woodruff 2020), a recent review of literature indicates there are gaps in our understanding of the barriers faced by planning professionals in both mitigating climate change and adapting to its impacts (Hürlimann et al. 2022). Furthermore, there is limited understanding of the facilitators of climate action and the regulatory factors that support these actions through urban planning in practice.

Janin Rivolin’s (2012) planning system conceptual model provides a practical way to consider where barriers to and facilitators of climate change action occur in planning systems. Identifying the barriers and facilitators to climate change action that arise in the everyday practice of urban planning, through the lens of planning systems, can facilitate the identification of practical points in urban planning systems where transformation to address climate change could occur. We complement Janin Rivolin’s planning system model with Healey’s (2006) theory of transformations in urban governance, to consider how material resources, regulatory power and ideas and frames of reference might act across planning systems to facilitate greater climate change action. Healey’s theory relates to leverage points for transformative action and facilitates going beyond just mapping what is needed at which stage, toward understanding how to create more agency for climate change action across all aspects of the planning system and its stakeholders.

A broad body of work has researched how to transform existing governance systems to address resilience, sustainable development, and disaster risk reduction (Asadzadeh et al. 2023). However, there has been limited research explicitly addressing this in the context of climate change and urban planning systems (Moser and Ekstrom 2010). A literature review (Hürlimann et al. 2022) of climate change preparedness across sectors of the built environment established a dominant focus on adaptation. Yet, internationally, there have been calls to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation actions in order to adequately address the climate change challenges presented (Hurlimann, Moosavi, and Browne 2021a; IPCC 2023; United Nations [UN] 2015). If the focus of research and action only addresses adaptation, then the root cause of climate change (emission of greenhouse gasses) will not be adequately addressed. This indicates further empirical work to understand barriers to and facilitators of adaptation and mitigation actions would be beneficial. Additionally, existing research has largely looked at specific case studies, rather than exploring barriers and facilitators to climate change action across aspects of the planning system.

The research reported in this paper addresses the gaps identified above. It explores barriers to and facilitators of climate change action across aspects of planning systems. It looks at both climate change mitigation (of greenhouse gases which are the cause of climate change), and adaptation to the negative impacts of climate change (e.g., building sea walls against sea level rise). It focuses on Australia, a country which is facing significant climate change impacts while population growth rate is high, leading to challenges to provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate this. Thus, insights provided through this research will be beneficial for other nations to consider. The paper explores the following two questions:

1. What barriers do Australian urban planners face to the implementation of climate change action across urban planning systems?

2. What factors do Australian urban planners identify to facilitate climate change action across urban planning systems?

The paper begins with a discussion of planning systems and governance in a changing climate, before discussing the extant literature on barriers to and facilitators of climate change action in urban planning. Information about the context for planning and climate change in Australia is then provided. Following this, the research method employed is detailed. The results of the research are then presented and discussed concurrently. Holistic implications for transforming urban planning systems to adequately address climate change, are drawn in the paper’s conclusion.

Planning Systems and Governance in a Changing Climate

The fundamental problem that this paper seeks to understand is how urban planning systems can transform or change to adequately respond to climate change. We are interested here in how urban planning systems can transform to respond adequately to climate change across all levels of speed, scope and depth. A key debate in literature surrounds the dichotomy between “incremental change” and “transformational change” (Termeer, Dewulf, and Biesbroek 2017). There are many assumptions made about the depth, scope and speed of both forms of change: transformational change is often associated with in-depth, large scale and quick change; whereas incremental change is usually portrayed as slow, partial and shallow (Termeer, Dewulf, and Biesbroek 2017, 560–61). However as pointed out by Termeer, Dewulf, and Biesbroek (2017), incremental change is not necessarily “non-transformational,” and instead they advocate an approach beyond this binary for “continuous transformational change.” We adopt this view here.

In considering the transformation of planning systems necessary to achieve effective climate change actions, Healey’s (2006) theory of “transformations in urban governance” is relevant. Influenced by the work of Giddens (1984), Healey (2006, 303) proposes that transformations in urban governance could be driven by: Material resources —power mobilized through the circulation of resources including “goods and assets, technologies, finance, labour power”; Regulatory power —enacting power over the behavior of urban activities, processes and developments through norms including codes, laws etc. which are both formal and informal, and Ideas and frames of reference— power to generate new ideas, which are influential in shaping identities and values. Each of these components could occur across planning systems in an integrated way.

There is a rich and contested history of planning scholarship that articulates theories about how planning systems best work, their function and purpose (Alexander 2022; Faludi 1987; Innes and Gruber 2001; Sandoval 2020; Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger 1998). In this paper, we apply Janin Rivolin’s (2012, 81–82) conceptualization of planning systems to consider barriers to and facilitators of climate change action for urban planners, given its focus on the social constructs that comprise the planning system (see Figure 1). Janin Rivolin’s conceptualization of planning systems consists of a government system , which includes both formal and informal components. Here governance is defined following Healey (2006, 302) as encompassing “all forms of collective action focused on the public realm (sphere) in one way or another, from those orchestrated by formal government agencies, to lobby groups, self-regulating groups, and social campaigns,” which is applicable to planning.

Figure 1.

A model of “planning system operation” developed from Janin Rivolin (2012, 73).

Janin Rivolin distinguishes between the governance system and the land use system which is labeled here the built/physical environment system , where built environment activities take place, including building and public works. It is within the governance system that policy formation takes place, which provides tools for policy to be implemented in the built environment. Tools can include laws, regulations, plans, strategies, guidelines, programs and voluntary instruments (Browne et al. 2024; Hoch et al. 2000; Janin Rivolin 2012). It is in the built and physical environment that the practices of built environment professionals and key actors including the community are key to implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of policy. Discourse occurs between actors when evaluating the policy framework to establish any changes necessary. It is through this discourse that Janin Rivolin (2012) says that communities of practice, policy networks and advocacy coalitions are important in framing the plannings system and the structures necessary to achieve public goals. The structure sets the legal provisions to enable the tools within the planning system to be legitimate and provide certainty for decisions making and individual rights (Janin Rivolin 2012). Janin Rivolin’s (2012) framework can assist in identifying where barriers and facilitators to climate change action arise within the planning system, to facilitate action to address them.

Barriers to and Facilitators of Climate Change Action for Urban Planners

An increasing body of research explores the barriers to and facilitators of climate change action in urban planning. We discuss literature relating to barriers and facilitators of climate change action, by considering where across Janin Rivolin’s planning system operation model these may occur.

Barriers to climate change action in urban planning found in the literature include factors relating to governance system structures including institutional barriers (Carter et al. 2015; Measham et al., 2011; Milordis, Butler, and Holmes 2023; Oulahen et al. 2018; Uittenbroek, Janssen-Jansen, and Runhaar 2013), and the legal framework including the lack of legislated emission reduction targets and/or their lack of integration into land use planning (Sahukar 2018). In practice there are a range of barriers identified in the literature including uncertainty surrounding statutory planning policy, lack of funding (Hamin, Gurran, and Emlinger 2014; Milordis, Butler, and Holmes 2023; Shi et al. 2024; Uittenbroek, Janssen-Jansen, and Runhaar 2013), short budget timeframes (Young and Essex 2020), and lack of resources (McClure and Baker 2018; Measham et al. 2011). In relation to policy formulation and policy evaluation, barriers include perceived costs of climate change actions, climate change not prioritized/prioritization of economic growth (Hrelja, Hjerpe, and Storbjˆrk 2015; Measham et al. 2011); perceived futility of action (Young and Essex 2020); insufficient data and information to assess climate change risks (Hamin, Gurran, and Emlinger 2014); balancing short-term and long-term goals (Tang et al. 2012); planners’ lack of climate change technical skills (Birchall, MacDonald, and Bonnett 2024) and fear of community opposition (McClure and Baker 2018). For discourse, a lack of community awareness (Oulahen et al. 2018); lack of political commitment and leadership for climate change (Carter et al. 2015; Birchall and Kehler, 2023; Hamin, Gurran, and Emlinger 2014; Shi and Varuzzo 2020); and conflicting values and beliefs (Hamin, Gurran, and Emlinger 2014) can be influential.

Facilitators of climate change action in urban planning, found in the literature include factors relating to policy formulation, policy tools and policy implementation , including guidelines to assist decision-making (Bedsworth and Hanak 2010), performance-based decision-making (Uittenbroek, Janssen-Jansen, and Runhaar 2013), and overarching policy supports (Burch 2010). In practice recognition of potential economic benefits of addressing climate change (Hrelja, Hjerpe, and Storbjˆrk 2015) have been found to be important, as well as balancing economic and political interests in climate change adaptation (Birchall, MacDonald, and Slater 2021). Political will (Tang et al. 2012; Young and Essex 2020) has been found to be important (governance system structure) , as well as support from leaders (McClure and Baker 2018; Measham et al. 2011) and government (McClure and Baker 2018; Measham et al. 2011; Tang et al. 2012) including multiple levels of government (Dymén and Langlais 2013; Vella et al. 2016)—all of which can relate to policy formulation, policy implementation and structure . Other facilitators have also been found to be important related to discourse including support of locally based actions (Burch 2010; Measham et al. 2011), and the experience of climate change events/impacts (Butler, Deyle, and Mutnansky 2016).

From our exploration of existing research about climate change and planning, we have established that while literature reports important insights, no one study has yet taken a holistic look across planning systems to consider barriers to and facilitators of climate change action. While the reviewed research has been beneficial to advance the understanding of the role of urban planning in climate change action, there are limitations. Studies exploring barriers and facilitators to climate change in urban planning, often focus on adaptation only—giving rise to specific project/contextual case studies. Only a few studies explore barriers to and/or facilitators of mitigation actions (e.g., Hrelja, Hjerpe, and Storbjˆrk 2015; Sahukar 2018) or both adaptation and mitigation concurrently (e.g., Landauer, Juhola, and Klein 2019; Measham et al., 2011; Murtagh, Odeleye and Maidment 2019; Tang et al., 2012). Additionally, many studies do not ask directly about barriers or facilitators, but rather they arise indirectly in the interviews, in surveys or through analysis of policy.

This paper aims to extend current understanding of barriers to and facilitators of climate change action by exploring the views of Australian urban planners, and identifying where barriers and facilitators occur across Janin Rivolin’s (2012) model of planning systems. Our research categorizes these barriers to, and opportunities for, climate change transformation identified across components of the planning system utilizing Healey’s (2006) theory of urban governance transformations (material resources, regulation, and ideas/frames of reference). Additionally, our study looks at both climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Urban Planning and Climate Change in Australia

Australian’s have the 11th highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions globally (Global Carbon Atlas 2024). This is driven partly by unsustainable development patterns, and high transport emissions associated with transporting people and goods in a large and sparsely populated country (Hurlimann 2022). Additionally, the country is rich with coal and other fossil fuel resources, which provide significant revenue for the nation. Coal provides a 15.3 percent share of exports with $66.9 billion revenue, and natural gas has 9.9 percent share, and a value of $43.3 billion and (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade [DFAT] 2021).

The latest biennial State of the Climate Report for Australia identifies that since 1910, Australia’s average temperature has warmed by 1.51°C (Bureau of Meteorology and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [CSIRO] 2024). Additionally, across many areas of the country where high population densities are located, rainfall and streamflow have been decreasing across past decades; coupled with increases in extreme fire weather across large parts of the country (Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO 2024). These climate change impacts are occurring in the context of sustained population growth—one of the highest in the OECD, and with 40 percent accounted for by overseas migration (National Housing Supply and Affordability Council 2024). These and other factors are contributing to a housing affordability crisis and housing shortage with a national government aim to build 1 million homes over 5 years starting from 2024 (Australian Government 2022). This places pressure on the need to ensure that the policy instruments supporting land use and development are adequately addressing climate change—both adaptation and mitigation.

There are approximately 17,000 urban planners working in Australia (Jobs and Skills Australia, and National Careers Institute 2023), with over 5,000 of them members of the national peak professional association for planners—the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) (Fallding and Williams 2023). The majority of planners (54 percent) work in public administration, 34 percent in private practice, 4 percent in real estate services, and the remainder (8 percent) in several other areas (Australian Government 2021). A 2020 survey of Australian urban planners (Hurlimann et al. 2023) found that 95 percent of respondents were aware of climate change impacts on urban planning. However, only 33 percent of respondents reported that they frequently incorporate climate change considerations into their work. Many of the planners surveyed reported limited access to climate change information and tools to assist them to make decisions. Additionally, a recent content analysis of a sample of urban planning degrees in Australia found that there was limited coverage of climate change issues (Hurlimann et al. 2021).

Government in Australia uses a three-tier approach: federal; states and territories; and local government (Parliamentary Education Office 2022). The practice of urban planning is undertaken predominantly at state and local government levels. Each state has its own approach to planning. Urban planning is comprised of strategic planning, and implementation through the statutory planning processes. Local government (councils) have a prominent role in strategic planning, applying state and territory level strategic planning parameters in the context of their local area.

For climate change planning, different approaches are also taken across states. For example, the State Government of Victoria (2017) introduced a Climate Change Act in 2017, which requires the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions toward net zero by 2050, and the development of policies to support the implementation of action, including a series of Climate Change Adaptation Action Plans—one of which is focused on the built environment (Department of Environment Land Water and Planning 2022). The overarching strategy for the state is Victoria’s Climate Change Strategy (Department of Environment Land Water and Planning 2021). However, recent policy analysis indicates only limited integration of climate change policy within the land use planning system at the state level evident at present, and limited integration of adaptation and mitigation actions (Hurlimann, Moosavi and Browne 2021b). Many local governments are taking initiatives at the local level through locally-based tools—such as the City of Melbourne’s Green Factor tool (Bush et al. 2021; City of Melbourne 2021).

Research Method

Participants and Their Recruitment

To understand the barriers to and facilitators of climate change action experienced by Australian urban planners, this study conducted in-depth interviews with twenty-three urban planners from diverse practice experiences and locations across Australia. Potential respondents were identified through professional networks including LinkedIn. None of the urban planners interviewed were climate change specialists. To ensure sample diversity, not all people who expressed willingness to participate were interviewed (making the calculation of a response rate difficult). Three people invited to participate declined, and three suggested other colleagues to be interviewed instead.

The key characteristics of the planners interviewed can be found in Table 1. In total, twelve female and eleven male participants were interviewed. The participants provide an approximately representative sample of the number of states and territories of practicing urban planners; gender balance (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016), and balance between those working in the public and private sectors. Participants were from a range of organization sizes and had a range of experience, holding roles from officer level to directors. When reporting the results, respondents are identified by a unique number and a code identifying the type of organization they work for (Pub = public; Pr = private and IA = industry association).

Table 1.

Participant Characteristics.

Respondent number	State	Role	Organization size	Organization type
1	Queensland	Manager	Small	Private
2	South Australia	Officer	Large	State Government
3	New South Wales	Director	Small	Private
4	Victoria	Manager	Medium	Private
5	Victoria	Senior Officer	Medium	Local Government
6	Queensland	Manager	Large	Local Government
7	Queensland	Manager	Large	Local Government
8	Victoria	Manager	Large	Private
9	Tasmania	Director	Small	Private
10	Victoria	Director	Large	Local Government
11	Queensland	Director	Small	Private
12	Victoria	Manager	Small	Private
13	Victoria	Senior Officer	Large	State Government
14	New South Wales	Senior Officer	Medium	Private
15	Western Australia	Officer	Medium	Private
16	New South Wales	Officer	Large	Industry Association
17	New South Wales	Officer	Large	Private
18	New South Wales	Officer	Medium	Local Government
19	New South Wales	Senior Officer	Medium	Industry Association
20	Queensland	Manager	Medium	Local Government
21	New South Wales	Manager	Large	Local Government
22	New South Wales	Officer	Large	Local Government
23	New South Wales	Officer	Large	Local Government

Interviews

Participants were asked a range of questions which addressed their personal professional practice, their organization, and the profession at large. In this paper, the focus is on answers to questions related to barriers and facilitators of climate change actions:

• What do you think the main barriers are to implementing action to address climate change (in your organization/in urban planning/the built environment)?

• What are the main facilitators/opportunities to implementing action to address climate change (in your organization/in urban planning/the built environment)?

At the start of the interview, climate change action was defined as including both adaptation and mitigation. These terms were defined by the interviewer for the purpose of clarity and consistency. The interviews were conducted between June and September 2021 online via video conference, or face to face when possible. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed either by a professional transcription company or through NVivo, and manually checked for accuracy, and de-identified by a member of the research team. Interviews ranged from forty to sixty minutes duration.

Data Analysis

The results were analyzed using NVivo software. The initial qualitative coding of responses was undertaken by one researcher. Further coding, on-coding, and categorizing was undertaken by another. Research team discussions about coding choices were undertaken regularly. The coding was undertaken in an open manner (Creswell and Creswell 2023; Hsieh and Shannon 2005) without the use of a predetermined framework. Once the coding had been completed, codes were grouped into themes, and then attributed to different components of the spatial planning system following Janin Rivolin’s (2012) conceptual model. The codes were also considered and categorized against Healey’s (2006) theory of transformations in urban governance: material resources; regulatory norms, and ideas and frames of reference.

Results and Discussion

A visual summary of the barriers to and facilitators of climate change action identified by interview respondents are presented and discussed in turn below. The components of the planning system are highly interrelated, so we discuss them as such, starting from “policy formulation” and working in a clockwise direction (see Figure 1).

Barriers to Climate Change Action across Urban Planning Systems

Figure 2 presents a summary of the barriers to climate change action identified by interview respondents, across the components of the planning system following Janin Rivolin’s (2012) conceptual model. Each barrier identified is categorized against Healey’s (2006) transformation of urban governance theory using brackets as follows: material resources (M); regulation (R); or ideas and frames of reference (I)—this was done to identify what drivers can mobilize actions at each stage of the planning system.

Figure 2.

Barriers to climate change action across components of the spatial planning system* as identified by Australian urban planners.

Starting from policy formulation , a lack of policy (to support both adaptation and mitigation actions) was identified as a key barrier by respondents. Limitations of existing policy and regulation were identified and often coupled with a lack of implementation of policy where it did exist—and linked by some respondents to the discretionary nature of urban planning in Australia:

I’m sick of going into greenfield areas and not seeing any solar panels on houses. It’s an add on cost. Well, as far as I’m concerned, mandate it, mandate water sensitive urban design, mandate water tanks, mandate solar panels. Just mandate all this . . . (3Pr)

Improving the development and implementation of policy has been a long-standing challenge for urban planning and other scholars (Bellinson and Chu 2019; Fischer and Boossabong 2018). In addition to our study, a lack of policy (Picketts et al. 2014; Oswald Beiler, Marroquin, and McNeil 2016), as well as policy implementation challenges (McClure and Baker 2018; Picketts et al. 2014) have also been identified as a barrier to climate change adaptation in existing literature.

Some interviewees noted that when there was climate change policy available, if it was of poor quality, or not supported by effective tools , this gave rise to a lack of implementation , which was a barrier to climate change actions occurring in the built environment :

What I saw was, there were areas that were identified as being flood prone or risk prone. But there was no strategy to deal with what happens to those areas. They were simply identified as being at risk. (9Pr)

There’s no toolkit for: how I know . . . what’s expected of me to design in or control in improved carbon performance and by how much? . . . We just need to have some indication of what’s expected of planners and how they should turn the dial up on the way they frame carbon performance for development and for precincts. (16IA)

In practice , three key themes related to financial barriers emerged. These included: budgets prioritizing issues other than climate change; the need to balance profitability with affordability and sustainability/climate change; and limits to budgets—of both clients and government:

They’re [developers] a bit interested, but as it starts to cost them more money, unless they’re really committed, they won’t pursue it. So, they’ll do their commercial analysis on a development and if it’s not starting to stack up, the first things that lose out are some of the sustainability elements [on] which return-on-investment tends to be longer, might be 10, 15 years. (11Pr)

. . . [T]here’s a chronic underfunding at a base level for local government . . . it leads to enormous inefficiencies in the way the projects can get delivered. (23Pub)

Economic and financial barriers to climate change action have also been identified in existing literature, including prioritization of economic growth (Hrelja, Hjerpe and Storbjˆrk 2015), lack of funding (Oswald Beiler, Marroquin, and McNeil 2016), influence of market pressures (Carter and Sherriff 2016); and perceived costs of climate changes measures (King et al. 2016). A key barrier identified for policy evaluation , is the tendency for short-term political thinking and action:

. . . [Y]ou know, in politics, they tend to focus a lot more on the short term and what might get them to win the next election. Whereas climate change is a long-term issue and a lot of the things we need to do now in order to get the benefits in the long term . . . [s]o that, I think is quite a significant challenge, how you get people to think about the decisions they’re making now in the longer term. (2Pub)

This is consistent with other studies that have found politics interferes with adaptation planning, including in Canada (Picketts 2014), Sweden (Storbjörk and Hjerpe 2014), the United States (Hamin et al. 2014), and in Carter and Sherriff’s (2016) multilocation study. Additionally, negative or unintended impacts of climate change policy were recognized as barriers in the evaluation stage:

We learned we were going heavy on water savings during the millennium drought and got to the end of that and our trees were all dying and landscapes were all dying. And we were like, oh, shit. We saved water, but we’re now sequestering less carbon. We’re now creating a different problem and we just totally flipped our thinking. (12Pr)

Further barriers at the evaluation stage relate to the complexity of the policy responses required for climate change, including challenges associated with coordinating components of policy, and of delayed action:

One [barrier] is the decentralized nature of how planning decisions are made versus how strategic planning is set . . . . There’s often a strong disconnect between strategic thinking and decision making because planning systems are multifaceted and really complicated systems to update. (19IA)

Planning personnel limitations (lack of climate change awareness) act as a barrier at the critical discourse stage of the planning system. There was a strong sense that the professional communities in which urban planners are practicing were not sufficiently aware of climate change issues, with flow-on impacts for the potential of practice addressing climate change:

I think the risk is . . . myself included . . . a lot of people don’t understand exactly what it is they’re supposed to be looking for or how they’re supposed to measure it or mitigate it or whatever. (17Pr)

But the other barrier that does play out a lot more, is thinking that other professionals have it covered. It’s sort of like: “Oh, yeah, that climate change thing. Yeah that does seem pretty serious. Luckily there are all these specialists and they know what to do.” (12Pr)

These findings have implications for the need to revise and update urban planning curricula and professional development opportunities in order to adequately address climate change. It is also consistent with the curriculum gap found in a recent survey of Australian university degrees (Hurlimann et al. 2021) and may have implications for other locations where climate change curriculum has also found to be limited such as the United Kingdom (Preston-Jones 2020), United States (E. Hamin and Marcucci 2013), and Africa and Asia (Scholz, Stober, and Sassen 2021).

Other barriers identified at the discourse component of the planning system include conflicting ideas and values between actors that give rise to prioritization of issues other than climate change:

People look at inconvenience before they look at the truth. I don’t want those power lines. I didn’t move here for that. Well, again, without those power lines, we don’t get renewable energy. (10Pub)

Similarly, a key barrier to changing the legal framework was the entrenchment of the status quo. Interviewees acknowledged the challenges to addressing climate change through their profession which is embedded in a society that has other focuses, with community disinterest and inaction on climate change, leading to the entrenchment of status quo in the planning system:

. . . [I]t’s easy to just do what you’ve done a million times over because residents don’t get upset with that. (20Pub)

The political nature of urban planning and its impact on planning system structure was evident through interviewees’ responses, including the limitations of some politician’s own climate change capacity:

. . .[O]ur department is fairly active at wanting to see change and wanting to promote climate change or facilitate climate change positive types of outcomes . . . we’re a bit hamstrung, of course, by the government of the day and what their agenda and priorities are. (2Pub)

That’s one of the challenges, the public’s a bit fickle. The politicians are a bit scared. (11Pr)

The barrier as an organisation, in the local government sphere, is that you’re in the hands, ultimately, of councillors. Some will agree and some will disagree on whether or not climate change is a thing. (10Pub)

Another frequently raised structure barrier was a lack of a supportive federal government position or policy environment for climate change. This was perceived to hamper other levels of government and practitioners to pursue climate change action. It was particularly pertinent for Australia at the time when these interviews were undertaken, before the election of the Albanese federal Labor government who have taken a more progressive approach to climate change:

[A barrier is] the lack of the federal government policy to support states and local governments. There’s that lack of confidence in committing around climate change specifically, and the local governments are pretty much driven by state government and federal government policy. So, if there’s not a strong commitment in place, it makes it difficult for councils. (23Pub)

Other structure barriers identified included conflicts between levels of government, separation of government departments, siloing of built environment sectors and the difficulty of planning into longer term horizons with limited information, data, and direction on potential impacts:

So when you’re talking about a 50 or 100 year planning framework for a new town, you know, this is something you need to think about . . . but the guidance on climate change is, I guess, so vague and precautionary. (15Pr)

A set of overarching barriers that worked across planning systems were identified. These related to apathy of key actors, a lack of leadership for transformation, a lack of courage, and a lack of climate change professional capacity of urban planners:

If you push for something that costs more and is difficult and it fails, then it’ll never happen again. And as a professional, you have to own that. And that’s a big ask if you haven’t got a lot of courage. (20Pub)

However, we also became aware that the planners, didn’t even know what information they needed, let alone reading it and understanding it. I didn’t even know what information they needed . . . (12Pr)

How do you make . . . the apathetic people actually want to change their behavior? (2Pub)

A number of interviewees suggested that many professionals working in urban planning relied on other professionals for climate change competence (e.g., in house or consultant sustainability practitioners) and/or planners did not have a thorough understanding of climate change and its implications for practice. This aligns with previous research that indicates the climate change skills and capacities of some urban planners in Australia (Hurlimann et al. 2023) and other contexts (Birchall, MacDonald, and Bonnett 2024) is limited.

Another overarching barrier identified was the perceived limited influence of urban planners in decision-making, particularly given the complicated decision-making and implementation system relevant to planning, and the multiple actors involved across different stages of a project:

. . . [P]lanners are facilitators rather than actual deliverers. So they are there to work with an architect or with a developer to try and achieve a good goal. So they’re just one step in a much bigger chain . . . But at the end of day, it’s still the architect and the developer’s call on what gets built. (08Pr)

An additional overarching barrier identified was a lack of climate change leadership within government, and within the community, and the profession—influencing components of the planning system:

There’s no leadership in how to deal with those things. People can make decisions about how it impacts them and what they can do. But the whole thinking about it collectively becomes a bit overwhelming, and that isn’t coming through leadership. (9Pr)

Upon reflecting on the categorization of barriers across Healey’s urban governance transitions theory, we can see that there are some patterns of occurrence across the planning system (Figure 2). Regulatory barriers are more present in the governance system and policy implementation components of the planning system. Whereas barriers that can be categorized as material resources occurred more across practice, and barriers related to ideas and frames of reference occur more across discourse.

Facilitators of Climate Change Action across Urban Planning Systems

The factors identified that facilitate climate change action across planning system components are shown in Figure 3 and are categorized against Healey’s (2006) transformation of urban governance to identify what drivers can mobilize actions at each stage of the planning system. Many of these facilitators addressed the barriers identified.

Figure 3.

Facilitators of climate change action across components of the spatial planning system* as identified by Australian urban planners.

Starting with policy formation , strong policy to support climate action, in addition to an effective policy instrument mix—the tools to assist implementation of policy—were identified facilitators of climate action:

Getting the best information out there and getting it into the tools, that you use for decision making and development assessment. (2Pub)

Across planning system structure , a key facilitator to emerge was collaboration between professionals working within government and the private sector. A whole-of-government, collaborative approach was seen to be a key facilitator of climate change action:

. . . [H]aving a whole-of-government response or whole-of-government position is going to be much more beneficial going forward than being siloed. (13Pub)

In relation to policy formation , there was a view across interviewees that policy mandates were important to formulate to achieve the implementation of climate change action (also found important by W. Butler, Holmes, and Lange 2021 in the United States):

People don’t understand “why I have to use my roof to collect the rainwater?.” “Why I need to improve the site permeability?.” If you tell them, this is because we need to respond to climate change emergency urgently, they will not understand. But if you say, this is a policy, this is a requirement, then they will listen (5Pub).

A federal framework or policy around climate change or emissions reduction would be really beneficial. (13Pub)

Highlighted as an important facilitator by numerous interviewees was enforceable and implementable policy. Key regulatory facilitators identified include the introduction ( formulation ) of climate change policy in the absence of one, or a climate change position within existing policy. Additionally, in terms of the planning system structure, the mainstreaming of climate change policy into existing processes in a comprehensive policy mix, including tools for decision-making (and assisting the public) were seen as key facilitators:

The key facilitator is the council having an adopted position on climate change. If it’s an adopted policy, it’s so much easier within council to say, well, we’re meeting a strategic plan objective . . . It really has to be written into the council’s strategic plans to be able to move forward . . . (23Pub)

There is a strong role for state and territory governments to create planning systems, . . . a local strategic planning guideline that is statutorily enforceable . . . [T]hey have a huge role to play in actually embedding these things educating practitioners on how they can best pick up those issues in their day-to-day work. (19IA)

The need to develop decision-making guidance for professionals has been previously identified, including the need for guidelines for planners to guide development (Bedsworth and Hanak 2010; Storbjörk and Uggla 2015); and day-to-day decision-making (Burch 2010), and is reflected in the findings of this Australian study.

For the built environment system in practice , alignment between economic and environmental (climate change) motivations was a key facilitator, as well as funding availability:

The other thing is trying to sell the message of a short term outlay can actually reduce costs. You know, they go, “Oh, I’ll build a cheaper house. I don’t want to have to put on all these tanks” and you know, double glazing, all that sort of stuff. Well, actually, that’s going to save you money in the long term. (18Pub)

Leadership in terms of policy evaluation and identification of necessary changes was also a key facilitator:

What we’re seeing across Australia are local and state governments taking leadership in this case and contributing funding towards it under a Commonwealth policy that doesn’t perhaps seek to address climate risks well, I think that’s a real that is a standout. (1Pr)

For discourse there were several identified facilitators including support from key actors, and the generation and support of innovative ideas and projects:

When we see opportunities where someone might be doing something a bit innovative, we try to as much as possible, work with them to facilitate that. (6Pub)

Increasing climate change competencies and the provision of information to support decision-making were identified as facilitators of climate change action by several respondents. This includes building and promoting climate change awareness in the general and professional community, including through formal education:

Planners and designers . . . in their higher education, need to be trained on how to advocate and in their professions, particularly policymakers, to be able to [have] the right amount of intervention. (14Pr)

In terms of the legal framework , it was recognized that strategic/long term planning (both existing and new strategic plans) have an important role to play in realizing the potential to facilitate climate change action:

We plan for 2050. And so that, long term vision is a great assistance to planning for climate change, because we can create policy settings when it’s done right, that have long, long term impacts. (19IA)

For the governance system structure , the ability to mainstream climate change into the existing policy setting was seen as important:

It’s about how you make it mainstream (2Pub)

Leadership and collaboration were also identified as facilitators of climate change action, including greater federal government leadership and support of climate change action, and recognition that state and local governments are stepping up to fill the void. Likewise, climate change declarations by local governments were seen to assist facilitate climate change action in urban planning by shifting the frame of reference:

The council declared a climate change emergency, so that was a really good acknowledgement, and which pushed forward the move to reviewing the existing climate change strategies. So it then adopted the new climate change policy with the goal to be net zero emissions . . . (23Pub)

A number of facilitators were found to be overarching across the whole planning system relating to the motivation and perceived capacity of actors working within the planning system. Increasing industry awareness of climate change was an identified facilitator, with some respondents indicating changes they have observed in recent years in professional planning associations in Australia:

I’m starting to sort of see more emphasis on learning . . . industry learning in those professions . . . PIA’s [Planning Institute of Australia] doing a position paper on it, at the moment . . . [T]here’s really positive conversations . . . there’s a hunger for the right advice, like to be attached to development projects and also precinct developments. (4Pr)

Support from key actors in the planning system, including the community were seen as key facilitators, along with innovative ideas and initiatives to assist cultural change:

Notwithstanding the policy vacuum at the state and federal level, largely, at least there’s is clearly an enabling sort of broad attitude in the community that, well, if they’re not going to do it, somebody is, it’s probably going to be us. (22Pub)

Additionally, a planners’ sense of duty and the capacity of the organization in which they worked (being able to draw upon others in the organization for expertise) were key overarching facilitators. Additionally, the role of professional associations in leading the way, and developing guidance on climate change and related matters was seen as influential:

Planners all have come to this profession because we have very similar values. And it doesn’t matter what side of the fence you’re on. And consultant planners can wield a lot of, power of persuasion with their clients in terms of really great on the ground outcomes. (1Pr)

In reflecting on the categorization of facilitators across Healey’s urban governance transitions theory, we can see that there are some patterns of occurrence across the planning system (Figure 3). Regulatory facilitators are more present in the governance system and policy implementation components of the planning system. Whereas facilitators that could be categorized as material resources and ideas and frames of reference occurred more across the bult/physical environment system including discourse.

The results reported here provide important insights into the barriers to and facilitators of climate change action faced by twenty-three urban planners from diverse backgrounds and locations, working across Australia. A limitation of the research is that it was conducted only in Australia, and was not quantitative. However, the qualitative nature of the study provides in-depth insight into the experience of those interviewed that cannot be gleaned from quantitative approaches. The results will provide insight for those working in other contexts, particularly developed nations with similar governance systems. Further research to test the findings in other contexts and to triangulate the results with analysis of other data sources such as plan and policy evaluation would be beneficial. It would also be beneficial to conduct additional comparative research within diverse contexts, and different political and governance systems to understand the political dependencies of climate change barriers and facilitators.

Conclusion—Transforming Planning Systems to Adequately Address Climate Change

This study builds on existing theory. By examining barriers to and facilitators of climate change action (mitigation and adaptation) experienced by Australian urban planners across Janin Rivolin’s (2012) “planning system” model (Figures 2 and 3), categorized against Healey’s (2006) theory of urban governance transformation, important new insights have been provided about where these barriers and facilitators occur, and the characteristics of them.

It is apparent that climate change is not routinely considered in urban planning practice or embedded within urban planning systems in Australia. This gives rise to continued tension and challenge to those who seek to incorporate it into their practice. This is particularly a problem in the context of the absence of climate change skills and capacities for many working in the profession and allied built environment professions. Politics and status quo prevent transformation of the system—including through small and meaningful changes across the planning system—that are necessary to adequately address the problem of climate change. Our study revealed that barriers to climate change action occur across all components of the planning system, and that the nature of the barriers tends to vary across different components of the system. Healey’s (2006) transformational governance forces (material resources; regulatory power; ideas and frames of reference) were found to be of influence across components the planning system, thus indicating the importance of investing in all types of resources to facilitate climate change action.

Our study builds on the Janin Rivolin framework, by finding that for the context of climate change, there is a range of overarching barriers that influence the planning system. These include a lack of leadership for climate change; apathy of actors, and a perceived lack of capacity and courage to act on climate change. However, interviewees identified a range of overarching factors that were influential in facilitating climate change across the whole planning system. These included planners’ sense of duty, climate change skills and capacity of key actors, leadership, and agency for change.

Our interviews with Australian urban planning practitioners have revealed important insights into everyday planning practice. Our research reveals there is a need for planning institutions to transform to address the challenge of climate change. The results of the research give rise to practical recommendations to achieve transformation of planning systems for climate change action as summarized in Figure 4 which integrates the two theories used in this research.

Figure 4.

Factors to enable transformation of planning systems for climate change action.

First, a key recommendation is for both planning education institutions and professional associations to facilitate the development and implementation of a plan for building professional climate change capacity, agency, engagement, and action (across urban planning university degrees and professional development opportunities). This includes importantly a plan of action upskilling practicing planners (not just planning students), given the urgency of the climate change problem—we cannot wait for the critical mass of current and future educated planners to lead climate actions once they are in the profession. A second key recommendation, building from the first, is the development of individual and institutional capacity to facilitate ideas and frames of reference which could act as a catalyst for the planning system to transform to adequately address climate change. Third, this change in cultural norms would assist the provision of adequate resources (financial and personnel) to see: fourth, the detailed design and implementation of urban planning policy instruments for effective climate change action.

Results from the analysis of the interviews undertaken with reference to planning system and urban governance transformation theory indicates that these four factors will assist urban planners, and thus cities, address the one of the most fundamental and existential challenges facing society—climate change.