Regional Climate Adaptation: Get Involved!
30 April 2025
On the 13th of May, Verture will be hosting a gathering in Glasgow which is open to all members of the climate action hubs of the Greater Glasgow region. It will be an opportunity to discuss how to put strategies for regional climate adaptation into action.
If you are involved in RenCAN, you are invited.
Climate adaptation in Renfrewshire
Climate adaptation in Renfrewshire
Our climate is changing. While it is important to reduce greenhouse gases, and work towards a Just Transition as we phase out fossil fuels, some changes are now inevitable.
Verture's Alex Cameron-Smith explains:
"Climate adaptation is all the actions and solutions that we can develop and put in place to build more resilient societies and economies. It also involves responding to the impacts of climate change that are already happening, or we expect to happen."
Renfrewshire is part of Climate Ready Clyde, the climate adaptation partnership for the Glasgow City Region. Climate Ready Clyde is a leading cross-sector initiative supported by Scottish Government to create and deliver a shared vision, strategy and action plan for an adapting Glasgow City Region. Its approach is as much about strengthening and nurturing existing partnerships as it is about developing new partnerships. Its projects include the Clyde Climate Forest, planting millions of trees to create habitats.
Adaptation - the national context
Earlier this year, Adaptation Scotland hosted the event 'Scotland's Regional Climate Adaptation Partnerships: from foundations to maturity' at Edinburgh Climate Change Institute. Svenja Meyerricks attended the event, representing Renfrewshire Climate Action Hub.
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At the event, stakeholders, such as researchers, climate hub members and community activists were asked to comment on Scotland's 3rd National Adaptation Plan. A key aim of the plan is to work with local government and a broad range of other partners to expand regional adaptation partnerships to all regions of Scotland by 2029.
Speakers included the Scottish Government, MSP Alasdair Allan, regional adaptation partnerships such as Climate Ready Tayside, Climate Ready South East Scotland, Highland Adapts and Climate Ready Clyde, the European Union-funded Pathways2Resilience, and TalX2, an Irish place-based climate adaptation project, to demonstrate a range of approaches.
In short, climate adaptation needs to happen at all levels. Key is the idea of 'climate vulnerability', which means that climate change will affect vulnerable people more. Existing inequalities of each area means that each locality will have specific requirements, and responses will look very different in cities than in remote and coastal regions.
In conversations around the table, many acknowledged that we need to rise to a monumental challenge, and everyone has a role to play. Facing many uncertainties, we have to get creative about solutions that support communities and are well-suited to particular localities.
Communities: make your voices heard
Communities can do a lot at a local level to ensure that localities are better adapted to a changing climate. Local food projects, nature restoration and training in a range of skills such as repair and seed saving all have their role to play, and can help generate a sense of community and mutual support at a local level.
But in addition, the more communities can make their voices heard at a strategic and regional level, the more they can ensure that national and regional efforts support what they have identified as local priorities.
So if you are a RenCAN partner or member and would like to get involved in this conversation, come along to Verture's event in Glasgow on the 13th of May.
To book, nd to find out more about the event, head to the Eventbrite page.
Written by Svenja Meyerricks
So if you are a RenCAN partner or member and would like to get involved in this conversation, come along to Verture's event in Glasgow on the 13th of May.
To book, nd to find out more about the event, head to the Eventbrite page.
Written by Svenja Meyerricks