Spatial planning, vacation homes and climate change

The project illuminates how spatial planning and related policy measures can support a "climate friendly" development of vacation homes by reducing their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions as well as increasing the resilience of vacation home areas against climate change. Construction and use of vacation homes is associated with building energy use, greenhouse gas emissions from travel and land use impacts, and thus highly relevant to both climate mitigation and adaptation. Responding to climate challenges relating to vacation homes entails changes in planning practice to promote climate-friendly developments and use pattern of vacation homes. Based on case studies from Norway and China, the project identifies how recent trends in vacation home use contribute to greenhouse gas emissions from mobility and housing consumption. The project also obtains an insight on how vacation home use patterns are affected by climate change. It analyzes planning responses to these challenges. The analysis of planning strategies address how climate change is interpreted by planners and to what extent it is considered in vacation home planning. The project brings researchers from Norway and China together in close collaboration. It offers an opportunity to compare between different economic and cultural conditions driving vacation home development, use patterns and variations in planning regimes. This highlights differences and similarities in barriers and opportunities for transformation in vacation home consumption and planning strategies.

The Project is the first kind of study that elaborates on the climate issues of vacation home Development. It advances the knowledge frontiers of planning for climate friendly and resilient vacation home development in Norway and China. Moreover, the project contributes to building up the competence of planners and policy makers in developing vacations homes in both countries. By incorporating the vacation home development into climate policy, it helps to live up to the ambitious climate goals. The findings of the project help planners to enhance their knowledge about how vacation home development is related to climate mitigation and adaptation, so that a better integration of climate change into municipal planning for vacation homes can be achieved. In addition, the project strengthens the academic collaboration between Norway and China, which lays better fundation for future cooperation.

Addressing all prioritized sub-themes of the research call, the overall research question of the project is: How can spatial planning and related policy measures promote a "climate friendly" development of vacation homes by reducing their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions as well as increasing the resilience of vacation home areas against climate change? Investigating the following sub-questions, the project will improve the international state-of-the-art knowledge on topics hitherto insufficiently covered by research: 1 What are the climate-related impacts of vacation home consumption and use measured against specific parameters such as construction, renovation, heating, cooling, energy use from appliances and conversion of greenhouse gas sequest ering areas? 2 What are the transport-related climate impacts of vacation homes in Norway used by Norwegians and foreigners as well as of Norwegians? use of vacation homes owned abroad? 3 To what extent do climate-related rebound effects exist within different urban spatial contexts, and to what extent does spatial planning consider such effects? 4 How does expected climate change affect the use potentials of selected vacation home areas, and which consequences might this in turn have in terms of GHG emissions as a result of changing use patterns? 5 To what extent do planners of vacation home development address climate change mitigation and adaptation, and how does the planning discourse act as either a barrier or mediator for such concerns? 6 What recommended planning strategies for urban and vacation home planning can be identified in order to mitigate climate impacts and adapt to a changing climate, and which possible synergies exist between mitigation and adaptive measures? The project will comb ine qualitative and quantitative research methods, using two mountain/inland and two coastal vacation home municipalities and an urban context as Norwegian cases, with similar research design adapted in China