Guidance on Integrating Climate Change and Biodiversity into ...

Engaging proactively with environmental authorities and stakeholders can also help build climatechange mitigation and adaptation measures and/or biodiversity enhancement schemes into theproposed PP from the very beginning of planning, into all stages of the SEA process (see box below).Environmental authorities and stakeholders will be in position to give their advice if there are anysignificant ongoing plans that should be taken into account, but you may not be aware of, e.g. floodrisks.Case study:River Basin Management Plans, Spain — importance of integrating climate change issues into allstages of the SEA processClimate change needs to be considered consistently at all stages of the SEA process, particularly in vulnerable areasand sectors.This case-study recommends that SEA practitioners clearly define mechanisms or instruments to integrate climatechange issues into the planning process. Proposed alternative measures need to be designed on the basis of anintegrated approach, and explicitly account for climate change-related uncertainty.Source: IAIA (Paper and presentation: SEA of Spanish river basin plans and climate change: A checklist study)The breadth of sectors and stakeholders involved in climate change complicates the process ofconsulting the correct authorities and stakeholders when carrying out SEAs, especially for PPs at thenational level. The SEA Directive requires early and effective consultation with authorities with‘specific environmental responsibilities’ and the public affected or likely to be affected by, or havingan interest in, the decision-making related to the PP in question, including non-governmentalorganisations, such as those promoting environmental protection and other organisations concerned(Article 6). These authorities are typically defined by the MSs as ministries or specialisedenvironmental agencies at different levels (national/regional/local), but climate change issuestypically require a different and often broader perspective, including authorities responsible forenergy, transport, water management, health and economic sectors.Again, SEAs can help PP authorities and experts to better define the range of authorities andstakeholders that need to be part of climate change-related decision making, and to get theminvolved early in scoping the key issues. SEAs also have a role to play in building consensus overlonger-term scenarios and alternatives.A series of key questions can be used as a starting point to help identify which aspects of climatechange and biodiversity are the most relevant — the headline concerns are listed in Table 6 overleaf.The sections below provide sets of questions and issues to help you consider which are the mostrelevant in any situation. Note that environmental authorities and stakeholders may identify otherkey concerns, such as the interactions between issues in different columns in Table 6 (e.g. measuresto meet low-carbon energy demand and their impacts on habitat fragmentation), and interactionswith other environmental issues such as water, waste and air. As discussed in Section 3, it isimportant to consider the interactions and the potential synergies and conflicts betweenenvironmental issues as part of the SEA process.<strong>Guidance</strong> on integrating climate change and biodiversity into SEA 31