Urban climate resilience and justice, a special issue
The latest issue of our peer-reviewed Journal is now available and open-access
As I receive enthusiastic reports from colleagues who attended the Innovate4Cities in Montreal last week, I am pleased to share the Special Issue on Climate Justice and Resilience, the latest issue of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, a collaboration between C40 Cities and the C40 Center for City Climate Policy and Economy and the University of Toronto Press.
To get a sense of why justice and urban resilience to the impacts of climate crisis go hand-in-hand, read the Foreword I co-authored with guest editors Haifa AlArasi and Karen Chapple…
“The impacts of climate change are accelerating, as evidenced by rising temperatures, extreme weather events, disruption in food and water systems, and exacerbated health-related risks, among others. These impacts are perceptible across the globe but more acutely experienced by underserved and marginalized communities. Cities, in these anthropocenic times, become vital hubs for mitigating these challenges and promoting climate resilience, not least because they are sites of convergence for resources, ideas, and innovation.”
Continue reading the Foreword to the Special Issue on Climate Justice and Resilience.
…or you may prefer to dive into the articles directly. You can find them all, with an accompanying blurb, below.
From the Special Issue on Urban Climate Resilience and Justice
Original Research
Mind the Gap: Defining Urban Resilience Knowledge-Implementation Gaps
By Corina Angheloiu and Mike Tennant (Imperial College London, UK)
Urban resilience has become an increasingly vague term that is creating challenges in operationalizing the existing knowledge base, as well as in learning and codifying new knowledge based on the current state of implementation. The paper identifies five types of urban resilience knowledge-implementation gaps (definitional, epistemic, multiscalar, methodological, and values gaps) and makes recommendations for addressing them.
By Yu Chen, Karlye Wong, Eren Rudy, Adriana Díaz Lozano Patiño, Ron Hofmann, Amy Bilton (University of Toronto, Canada), and Martin Liedo (Isla Urbana, Mexico)
Mexico City faces significant water security challenges in a context of rapid urbanization and climate change. The paper discussed the current issues with the management of Mexico City rainwater harvesting initiatives and offers a set of operational and technical recommendations to promote safe water management practices.
By Sabrina Chiodo, Lief Pagalan, Mackenzie Hurst, Meghan O’Neill, Helen Stylianou, Lori M. Diemert, Jeffrey R. Brook, Laura C. Rosella (University of Toronto, Canada), Hong Chen (Health Canada), Andy Hong (University of Utah, USA)
This study provides recommendations based on modelling and population-level data for policymakers to develop data-driven solutions to reduce the negative impact of air pollution on communities and promote sustainability. The Premature Mortality Population Risk Tool augmented with environmental data (PreMPoRT-ENV) predicts the 5-year incidence of premature mortality in adults and can estimate the impact of air pollution mitigation strategies in urban areas to predict health co-benefits. The modelling demonstrates that these interventions and climate reduction strategies can enhance resilience to climate change in urban areas, ensuring the well-being of populations in the face of global environmental challenges.
Policy Guidelines
Addressing Green Gentrification: Actions and Recommendations for Global Cities
By Alice Creasy (WSP, UK) and Katherine Maxwell (University of Oxford, UK)
Drawing on three case studies from Barcelona (Spain), Ghent (Belgium), and Sarigol neighbourhood in Istanbul (Türkiye), the paper offers four recommendations for cities keen to address the urban green gentrification—a phenomenon whereby the expansion and enhancement of green infrastructure is also exacerbating social, racial, and economic inequalities and leaving lower-income residents at risk of being physically displaced. These are:
Deep and sustained resident consultation;
Holistic approach to development and zoning policies;
Place-based approach to retain neighbourhood identity and use; and
Power analysis to understand the impact on stakeholders.
Commentary
By Amanda Norton, Elysia G. Fuller-Thomson (University of Toronto, Canada), Matthew Adams (University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada)
The paper highlights that three of the four dimensions of the Ontario Marginalization Index were positively associated with air pollution concentrations at the dissemination area level in the Peel Region, a municipality in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. It concludes that:
Indicators of vulnerability in Canada should be better defined and established using environmental measures and in consultation with the community;
Individuals or families seeking affordable housing should be informed of the air pollution concentrations in their community before move-in;
Affordable housing developments must be built in areas with clean air or built with measures in place to mitigate poor air quality; and
Ongoing research on accessibility to living in regions with clean air is needed to determine why socially vulnerable people may not be able to live in communities with clean air.
Review Article
Examining Climate Justice in Urban Public Space Adaptation: A Thematic Synthesis of the Literature
By María Ruiz de Gopegui Aramburu (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), Marta Olazabal (IKERBASQUE, Spain), and Vanesa Castán Broto (University of Sheffield, UK)
This study outlines the approaches and evaluation parameters to assess climate justice in public space adaptation across the three main dimensions of justice:
distribution (justice in the distribution of climate vulnerability and impacts);
procedure (processes that determine outcomes), and
recognition (acknowledging and respecting the diversity of needs and values across individuals or societal groups).
The Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy is available through a Subscribe to Open model in an effort to achieve the goals of broad dissemination of content valued by scholars and researchers. Having reached our annual subscription threshold, the content of this issue is available to all without any cost to authors. Please consider recommending the Journal to your Institution’s Library to access future issues as soon as they’re published.
Until next time,
