Bracing for the inevitable: An exploratory multi-case study of local climate change adaptation plans

Sammanfattning: Vulnerability to climate change and the capacity to adapt to it are the result of intersecting power structures, system dynamics, and social identity markers otherwise known as intersectionality; and thus, differ greatly between contexts. However, despite the stark contextual differences between small and metropolitan cities, and lower and higher income countries, the policy and study of climate change adaptive planning has often focused on capital cities and technocratic solutions as a default blueprint for adaptation processes. Against this backdrop, there have been increased calls for a more social centred and context-specific approach to climate change policy. Through a multi-case study of four small cities’ climate change adaptation plans (Cartago, Colombia; Cajamarca, Peru; Metepec, Mexico; and KwaDukuza, South Africa) this research explored if and how the selected cities in middle-income countries considered equity, justice, and fairness in their adaptive planning as indications of a more social, human-centred approach to adaptive planning. An iterative content analysis of the selected cities local climate change adaptation plans and relevant contextual documents was conducted utilizing NVivo. A coding framework was developed based on a literature review of the concepts of equity, justice, and fairness in climate adaptation. The coding framework included common terms found across multiple definitions of the concepts of equity, justice, and fairness. The results of the analysis suggest that while more “social” concepts like equity, justice, and fairness are referenced in adaptation plans, they do not necessarily result in specific adaptation measures. Equity was the most referenced concept in the analysed adaptation plans, albeit mostly through combating socioeconomic inequity and to a lesser extent, through gender equity measures. Equity was also linked to the highest occurrence of specific adaptation measures across the analysed plans. Justice was the second most referenced concept throughout the analysed adaptation plans. However, it had a lower number of specific adaptation measures, mostly related to procedural justice through the promotion of public participation. Fairness was the least addressed aspect across all analysed climate adaptation plans and had virtually no specific adaptation actions except for Cajamarca, Peru, which included one adaptation measure to increase the cultural pertinence of agricultural projects involving indigenous peoples. Moreover, vulnerability and resilience were often approximated from the perspective of key economic activities, not people. The findings of this study suggest that despite increased references for adaptation to focus also on social issues, technocratic solutions continue to be the prevailing approach to adaptive planning. The findings of this study suggests that the use of normative concepts like equity, justice, and fairness can serve as a guiding anchor for adaptive planning to weigh in how to leverage outcomes for the most vulnerable; ensure procedural and distributional justice, and create fair outcomes between social groups and generations, particularly the most disadvantaged. This thesis also recommends adopting an intersectional understanding of vulnerability to climate change to better understand its root causes and thus, frame better-suited adaptation measures. Potential future research could further explore the use of normative concepts like equity, justice, and fairness and their interpretation in different contexts (e.g. megacities, informal settlements, highly unequal cities); intersectionality in climate change policy adaptive planning, particularly when it comes to the understanding of vulnerability to climate change. Further research could also focus on specific social identity markers (e.g. gender, indigeneity, and social class) and how they shape vulnerability and adaptative capacity.