for increased flooding risks.
Chemical risks from petrochemical harbour activities and flooding risks are among the main concerns of the city’s civil protection system, as repre- sented by the Rotterdam Rijnmond Safety Region, but climate change is not addressed. In explaining this omission, informants said that civil protection is perceived as an operational organisation and will therefore only be involved at a later stage of the adaptation programme, after the major spatial and eco- nomic decisions are made. In reality, representatives from the Safety Region and the municipality already have regular meetings and indeed our informant at the Safety Region expressed the ambition to develop a strategic focus includ- ing longterm horizons and more-distant topics such as adaptation. Applying such a broader perspective has so far not been possible due to limited capacity and the lack of a unified body which the Safety Region has yet to become. It could well be that the Safety Region will develop into a bridging institution between the somewhat proactive domains at the municipality and the water boards, and the more reactive civil protection system.
5.5
Explaining the observed policy integration
How might the observed integration of adaptation into civil protection be explained, and what are possible reasons for the differences and similarities in this respect among the three countries? As discussed above, adaptation was put on the Norwegian national policy agenda by the civil protection authorities during the early 2000s. They were, at that time, busy consolidating their new role following the reorientation of civil protection from predominantly a military to a civilian focus after the end of the Cold War and the downsizing of civil protection authorities (Husabø, 2008). Civil protection institutions were thus looking for new legitimacy and additional tasks, and their introduction of the RVA as a significant planning tool in the mid-1990s was an important part of that reorientation. Their later interest in adaptation can be seen as a logical follow-up and part of the same process.
Even though Sweden is preparing adaptation action, the country lacks a NAS (Biesbroek et al., 2010), and no such strategy seems to be forthcoming. Local and regional authorities are provided with adaptation guidance, such as in the form of a website with examples of good adaptation practices. However, there have been few signs from the Swedish government of new policy mea- sures being introduced following the comprehensive adaptation green paper of 2007, and this lack of political initiative has consequences for civil protection activities in this new field. As such, Sweden is lagging behind the Nether- lands and Norway in integrating adaptation into civil protection policy. What
Chapter 5 Integrating climate change adaptation into civil protection
makes this process more complete in Norway is the unique role that DSB has acquired in putting adaptation on the national policy agenda, and the extent to which civil protection authorities at both the national and regional lev- els have picked up on the idea of working specifically on adaptation. In the Netherlands, flood protection has long been seen as a matter of vital interest. Consequently, the policy integration of adaptation has been most effective in this field, and far more accentuated than in either Norway or Sweden.
Turning to the local level, a common feature is that adaptation seems to be a non-issue with the traditional civil protection officials. In Bergen, Malm¨o and Rotterdam, the adaptation efforts being made are by strategically oriented land-use planners, environmental staff or those with responsibility for flood protection, not by those on the operational track of the civil protection system. The City of Malm¨o authorities have substantial adaptation- related achievements through their construction of open storm-water systems, despite the lack of reference to climate change. While Bergen lacks the experience and expertise present in Malm¨o, it is showing determination in adopting universal regulations and making clearer links to adaptation. In Rotterdam, the desire for flood protection is evident in the degree to which public and private in- terests are cooperating on making the city ‘climate proof’ in order to remain economically attractive.
Experiences of extreme weather and perceived vulnerability are important. Recent landslides in Bergen gave momentum to adaptation policy integration, while impressions from the 2005 New Orleans disaster had a similar effect on Rotterdam. In Malm¨o, however, numerous but smaller extreme weather events have not provoked similar sentiments.
The institutional structures may explain some of the observed differences among the three countries. If there are national-level officials with a commit- ment to an adaptation policy, then having a central civil protection unit, as we have seen in Norway, eases implementation. In the Netherlands there is no such unit, and even though there has been a NAS since 2007, top-down influence will have to be initiated in each of the 25 Safety Regions to change the entire country’s civil protection system at lower levels.
The varying degrees of policy integration in the three countries may also stem from different needs for renewed legitimacy within the civil protection systems after the end of the Cold War. To what extent civil protection has sought new roles in the civil sphere may be a function of the military’s access to resources. One hypothesis is that Sweden’s non-aligned position outside NATO has resulted in a strong military complex that was less influenced by the end of the Cold War than the armed forces of Norway and the Netherlands. An interesting question is whether this is a reason why the civil protection