Transcript Slide 1

Evidence review: climate
change and social justice
Evidence Review Climate Change and Social Justice
Katharine Knox, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Nick Banks, Ian Preston, Simon Roberts, Katy Hargreaves, CSE
Clare Downing, Roger Street , Ruth Mayne and Karen Lucas, OUCE, ECI and UKCIP – University of Oxford
Aleksandra Kazmierczak, University of Manchester
Climate change and social
justice: Impacts
Impacts of climate change
Impacts
Direct
(in the UK)
Immediate
effects
Tangible
Intangible
Longer lasting
effects
Tangible
Indirect
(overseas
affecting
the UK)
Intangible
After Houston et al (2011) Pluvial(rain related) flooding in urban areas: The invisible hazard
Vulnerability
• Vulnerability to the impacts of climate change
is influenced by a mix of personal, social and
environmental factors.
– Personal: age, health, disability, gender, ethnicity
– Social factors: income, tenure, strength of people’s
social networks
– Environmental: urban/rural living, housing
quality, green space provision
Current state of knowledge
Vulnerability links
Direct impacts: emerging
issues
• Older people are at highest risk of extreme temperatures
• Lower income groups at disproportionate risk of coastal
flooding. Retirement migration to the seaside results in
further increased vulnerability
• Lower income groups live in areas with less green space so
can be more affected by heatwaves and pluvial flooding
• Lower income groups may be affected by water poverty due
to projected decrease of rainfall in summer
• Private tenants are highly impacted by flooding and are a
growing group
• Spatial concentration of vulnerability and risks in cities and
coastal areas
Indirect impacts
Main issues emerging from the Foresight Programme :
– Climate-related migration: potential impact on health
services, welfare and community cohesion
– Food prices: impact on diets and health disparities
– Energy security: energy prices
– Impacts on supply chains of resources and commodities
Impacts research gaps and
future directions
• Direct impacts
– Drought/water scarcity beyond water affordability
– Vulnerability of black and ethnic minority and recent immigrants
– Role of social networks, community cohesion and social capital in
resilience
– Longer term impacts of extreme weather events
– Impacts on local businesses and economic activity
– Future projections of climate AND vulnerability
– Interactions of factors relating to social justice
Impacts research gaps and
future directions
Indirect impacts:
– Real scale of migration and its repercussions
– Disruptions to food chains, impact on prices, diets and health
– Disruptions to energy supply, impact on electricity prices and what it
means for the poorest.
Foresight programme
Impacts: what next
• Need for a wider definition of ‘vulnerability’ going beyond
personal circumstance, deprivation and emergency planning
guidance
• Focus on longer-term planning for resilience across all social
groups: move beyond emergency planning
• Bold policy decisions? e.g. Long-term planning needed for
coastal zones and flood risk areas (including relocation)
Socially Just Adaptation
Responses
Adaptation: emerging issues
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Social justice in adaptation planning is not widely addressed and
there is limited evidence of the concept being addressed at local
level (all agencies).
The Principles of social justice are referred to in most national
policies but there is no evidence (yet) to determine how they will be
implemented.
Evidence to show the ‘nature of risks’ and ‘areas most vulnerable’
(e.g. to heat or flooding) but no evidence of these two sources being
joined (multiple deprivation, multiple risks, interdependencies).
Interaction of social capital and social cohesion and resilience to
climate change impacts is complex.
© UKCIP 2013
Adaptation: emerging
issues
• Is using markets the right choice of measure? ‘Fair’ but does it protect the
vulnerable?
-E.g. socially just water pricing, flood insurance
• Need to address tensions created by responsibility – Government vs local vs
individual
Adaptation: what works (? )
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1.
2.
3.
4.
•
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Evidence of socially justice adaptation responses is limited and it is
not clear that that they work yet... Found in 4 areas :
heat waves,
water scarcity and drought,
flooding and
coastal erosion.
New methods of involving communities in decisionmaking about
adaptation choices and management of the local environment – the
Dutch method
Social networks in general reduce vulnerability and improve the
response of neighbourhoods to climate-related events
© UKCIP 2013
Guidance for Adaptation Policy
• Need for evidence of who is vulnerable thus linking to how
they respond, who pays and who benefits from policies
– disaggregated social data – to provide differentiation
within communities in terms of equity and capacity
• Need to clarify where national policy needs to intervene in
local service provision
• Need for understanding attitudes to risk and to adaptation
options (evidence emerging from local examples) –
– how to reflect these within an assessment and how best to
communicate the results (upwards to national agencies,
downwards to vulnerable individuals)
© UKCIP 2013
Adaptation : research gaps
• Gap in understanding which people are vulnerable to which risks at local
scale
• What should ‘socially just adaptation’ look like and how should it be put in
place, both short and long-term.
• Need to join up disparate sources of (mainly local) evidence including
assessing social interactions
– e.g. Kent SWIMS tool, Leeds mapping tool
© UKCIP 2013
Mitigation
– how fair is the policy and practice of
reducing carbon emissions?
What are the emerging issues
for mitigation ?
• The unequal distribution of emissions
From Gough et al. 2011 The distribution of total greenhouse gas
emissions by households in the UK, CASE LSE
What are the emerging issues
for mitigation ?
• in tandem with....the unequal distribution of costs and
benefits of mitigation policy..
Preston, I. et al 2013 Distribution of Carbon Emissions in the UK: Implications for
Domestic Energy Policy JRF York
What are the emerging
issues for mitigation ?
•How we assist those groups who are the hardest hit by
uncompensated mitigation policy
..and tackle fuel poverty and climate change simultaneously
•How to target and engage disadvantaged communities –
issues of procedural justice
Mitigation: what works
• The “vision” - integrated mitigation and adaptation policy –
the transformational perspective (green growth, more
resilient communities and a lever for a more just society..)
• More concretely – multiple opportunities for technologies
simultaneously addressing adaptation and mitigation goals in
a fair or progressive way - solid wall insulation, green space,
transport modal shift
Where are the mitigation
gaps?
• Comprehensive analysis of distribution of costs and benefits
of mitigation policy – both existing and forthcoming
• Justice implications of the overall energy mix (nuclear,
renewable, fracked gas..)
• Methodologies for quantifying and mapping energy
vulnerability
What next..mitigation
policy implications
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Domestic energy and transport mitigation policy is
often regressive - how do we develop a raft of policy
creating mass retrofit and transport modal shift in a
fair way
Need for robust methodology to appraise fairness of
mitigation policy and identify “the hardest hit”
What next..mitigation policy
implications
• New engagement tools and processes to understand people’s needs
and ensure all voices are heard (in the context of greater localism)
General implications
• Social justice is not (yet)a salient issue in academic and policy discourse on
climate change in a UK context (and vice versa?)
• Need to think about:
• ‘Vulnerability’ as multi-dimensional and interactive
• ‘Community resilience’ as multi-faceted, not just coping with
emergencies
• Systems, not just sectors - Bridge the gap between climate change
policy and policy seeking to tackle social vulnerability, poverty and
disadvantage
• Procedural justice – what needs to happen with whom at what scale
to build community resilience and to secure consent for
transformations needed and finally..
• How to ‘operationalise’ existing knowledge about social justice and
climate change for practical application