September 2022 Peer Learning Round-Up

September 28, 2022

Peer Learning is at the heart of the ASAP Network! Welcome to the monthly Peer Learning Round-Up! Let’s recap the last opportunities for peer learning at ASAP:

Policy Practice Group

Our September Policy Practice Group meeting hosted a peer learning session on our third policy priority, “Require all physical and social infrastructure decisions to consider future climate conditions.”

Meeting Resources + Key Takeaways:

Notes
Policy Tracker– all round robin policy updates are captured on the tracker
Many resources for the IRA are in the Slack Channel.
We focused our discussion on integrating equity into infrastructure projects.
Our breakout rooms focused on case studies that highlighted where attendees have experienced successes and challenges in integrating equity into infrastructure projects. See notes from breakout groups here.
Action plan from priority #1 is here.
Action plan from priorities #2 and #3 will be ready soon!

Group Overview: Members seek to encourage and leverage meaningful U.S. state and federal government interventions that support adaptation planning, implementation, and research through legislative, regulatory, or budgetary policy actions in line with ASAP’s Policy Priorities.

Next Meeting: Join us for our next group meeting on October 7th at 1:00 pm EST. We will be moving to our fourth policy priority “Preserve, restore, and manage natural systems for climate resilience”. Stay tuned for speaker details!

🗓️ Friday, October 7, 1-2 PM ET
🔗 Register now.

Network of Networks

This month our speaker was Rewa Phansalkar, Research and Outreach Specialist at the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University and colleagues. Rewa presented on “Adaptation Governance Networks along the Lake Ontario Shoreline: Identifying Opportunities to Build Local Adaptive Capacity through Regional Collaboration” highlighting climate-induced flooding along the shoreline of Lake Ontario caused significant damage to infrastructure and property. As climate change continues to impact lake levels in unforeseen and uncertain ways, the region faces a threat from increased erosion, flooding and low water levels. It is critical to establish dynamic adaptation strategies for lake level management on Lake Ontario and reduce barriers to local adaptation under climate and lake level management uncertainty. This project uses Social Network Analysis (SNA) to describe the systems that govern adaptation outcomes along the shoreline, and aims to outline possible gaps and barriers in coastal adaptation at the community level by understanding various stakeholders, players, and processes that comprise the network.

Group Overview: This is a community for those who coordinate and lead existing adaptation networks, collaboratives, and groups to share ideas and benefit from a supportive community of peers.

Next Meeting:

🗓️ Friday, October 7, 3-4 PM ET
🔗 Register now.

Funding and Finance

The September ASAP Funding and Finance Group meeting focused on a discussion on federal funding with Krystal Laymon from FEMA. Below is a meeting recap and related resources.

Meeting Notes – Sep 2022 Agenda – Google Docs
Resilience Funding Tracker – Resilience Funding Tracker – Google Docs
Ready to Fund Resilience Toolkit – Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit – Adaptation Professionals

We will not be meeting virtually in October, but we hope to tag-up with everyone who will be attending the National Adaptation Forum in Baltimore. We will resume our regularly scheduled meetings in November.

Group Overview:
Focuses on defining strategies to help small and medium-sized local governments in the U.S. integrate key characteristics into their climate resilience projects to make them fundable.

Next Meeting:

🗓️Monday, November 28, 12-1 PM ET
🔗 Register now.

Community Adaptation Learning Exchange

In September CALE held a discussion with Dr. Megan Lawson, Economist at Headwaters Economics and Jon Snyder, Senior Policy Advisor for Outdoor Recreation and Economic Development at the Washington State Governor’s Office. This session titled “How Outdoor Recreation Can Support Economic Development and Climate Adaptation” focused on the opportunities and challenges associated with outdoor recreation economies, and what communities with outdoor recreation-based economies are doing to adapt to a changing climate.

CALE’s theme for 2022-2023 is exploring the ways that adaptation and resilience planning can drive economic opportunity. Watch past sessions HERE.

Group Overview:

Convenes conversations about climate adaptation practice to facilitate knowledge development and support member connections.

Next Meeting:

🗓️ November, Date and Time TBD
🔗 Register now.

Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee

The last Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee meeting focused on Designing Adaptation Projects to Center Equity! It was a pleasure to have Emily Eisenhauer and other staff members from the EPA present the Equitable Resilience Builder, followed by a brainstorming and Q&A session.

Four main takeaways emerged from the Q&A, chat and discussions: the role of funders in the design of adaptation projects, community agency in adaptation projects, the need for system change, and language impacts on equity. Watch the meeting on demand or read the summary notes to learn more.

Committee Overview:

Advances and discusses the urgent need to equitably adapt to climate change necessitates the removal of oppressive systems and requires a transformation into a society where we all share in the power and prosperity of resilient economic and social systems.

Next Meeting:

For the October ASAP JEDI Committee Quarterly Meeting, we will be focusing on examples of community engagement from the perspective of an outside organization coming into a community in contrast to an organization embedded within a community seeking outside assistance. We will be sharing tools for understanding the potential role of power in relationship building, lessons learned from lived experiences, and some best practices for community engagement in your work.

🗓️ Wednesday, October 17, 12-1:30 PM ET
🔗 Register Now.

JEDI Community of Practice

This month we had a conversation on the what and why of land acknowledgments. We explored questions like: Why do we share land acknowledgments? How do we go beyond an acknowledgment and move to action? How do we do this with authenticity without feeling awkward or performative?

Group Overview:

Join this space to discuss implementing JEDI into your work or engage with the sharing of challenges and success stories.

Next Meeting:

🗓️ Friday, October 28, 3-4 PM ET
🔗 Email Galen Treuer at gtreuer@gmail.com.

JEDI Accountability Group

This month ASAP Staff shared how ASAP as an orgnaization can remain accountable to our JEDI Commitments.

Group Overview:

This group acts as a sounding board for ASAP Staff and members to ensure that our work holds up and celebrates our JEDI Commitments.

Next Meeting:

🗓️ Wednesday, October 12, 12:30-1:30 PM ET
🔗 Email Sharon Hausam at sharonhausam1@gmail.com.

Professional Opportunities in Adaptation

Recap Coming Soon!

Group Overview:
This group is for ASAP members who are job searching, pivoting careers, or seeking other professional opportunities, to build the tools and network to land their next opportunity in adaptation.

Next Meeting:

Career Panel
🗓️ Friday, October 21, 1-2 PM ET
🔗 Register now.

Convening Climate Collaborators

Group Overview:

A space to connect, learn, share and design collaboratively solutions to advance the adaptation agenda with other professional organizations. Would you like to share an overview of your organization at a meeting? Contact Breana Nehls.

Next Meeting:

We are still defining our speaker, let us know if you’d like to share!

🗓️ Thursday, October 27, 12-1 PM ET

🔗 Register now.