Translating and embedding equity-thinking into climate adaptation: an analysis of US cities

Abstract

Cities increasingly recognize the importance of furthering social equity in their climate adaptation planning. Such efforts are often in response to grassroots mobilizations, yet it is not clear to what extent they translate into urban coalitions, policy designs, and implementation efforts within city governments. In this paper, we respond to this knowledge gap by assessing how equity-thinking is translated into cities’ adaptation decision-making and governance arrangements, especially in ways that can lead to more inclusive and just climate adaptation outcomes for historically marginalized communities. We analyze adaptation plans for the 25 largest US cities using deductive and inductive coding strategies to uncover the ideas, rhetoric, and processes that guide equitable plans. We then map these outcomes of equity-thinking across procedural, distributive, and recognitional categories. Our analysis lends support to the operation of two social constructivist mechanisms of equity-thinking in adaptation planning—namely ideology and recognition. In an ideology-driven pathway, where beliefs are shared, adaptation efforts are mobilized through local actors and within public agencies who decide on the appropriateness of social equity definitions. Recognition-driven pathways occur when climate equity rhetoric is reflected and normalized through adaptation planning procedures, where cities strive to be early adopters of equitable climate strategies. This result therefore highlights the multiple ways urban leaders, decision-makers, and planners can have in steering policies and designing different planning and implementation processes.

Evaluating Local Climate Policy: Municipal Action Plans through the Lens of Resilience and Environmental Justice

“…A report published by the Michigan Climate Action Network (MiCAN) served as a starting point to identify municipalities with local climate plans (49). According to the report, sixteen municipalities in the state had climate action policies and renewable energy goals as of 2022.…”

A scoping review of equitable climate adaptation research in U.S. cities

“…Many of the studies we analyzed discussed the content of climate adaptation plans, particularly how cities are including considerations of equity and justice in their planning documents (Schrock et al 2015, Fainstein 2018, Meerow et al 2019, Chu and Cannon 2021, Fiack et al 2021, Hess and McKane 2021, Mullenbach and Wilhelm Stanis 2022, Cannon et al 2023. One study also analyzed reports from different organizations about how cities can enhance equity and justice in their plans (Shi 2021).…”

“…The studies encompassed in this review indicate that cities are quite good at identifying their problems, but struggle when it comes to explaining their long-term goals, particularly related to equity and justice implications. Our analysis revealed that cities often describe the types of goals they have in many areas, but researchers of these cities struggled to identify implementation timeframes, funding source, guidelines, and responsible parties (Cannon et al 2023). Additionally, when considering the three prongs of EJ theory, study authors indicated plans least often discussed issues related to recognition justice and acknowledging how systemic racism has shaped their present conditions, though our sample indicated that many cities were able to identify which groups of people were considered vulnerable (Meerow et al 2019, Cannon et al 2023.…”

What motivates and hinders municipal adaptation policy? Exploring vertical and horizontal diffusion in Hessen and Finland

“…A larger discrepancy between differently sized municipalities can be seen with regards to the reduction of social inequalities, which is an important motivation for adaptation policy development in more than half of the large municipalities but only in 14% of the medium-and small-sized municipalities. This may suggest that equity concerns in climate change adaptation, which have increasingly spread across larger cities (see Cannon et al 2023) may not as easily gain traction in smaller municipalities. About half of the medium-sized and large municipalities also see local political pressures as an important motivation for adaptation activities while this is only the case in about 25% of the small municipalities.…”