Urban Justice in a Changing Climate: Rethinking Equity and Justice Criteria to Assess Climate Action Planning in Canadian Municipalities

Abstract

As climate change accelerates, communities around the world are forced to confront the risks and opportunities that arise from climate disruption. Socially and economically marginalized groups are particularly vulnerable, facing the greatest impact and the risk of being further disadvantaged by poorly designed climate change policies that fortify longstanding disparities. Climate action plans are rapidly being developed across governance scales to promote ambitious climate action and progressive social reform, but progress to date has focused more on addressing environmental goals than ensuring social equity. Key challenges include addressing the differential impacts of climate change on vulnerable groups, capturing the needs and priorities of underserved communities in climate change plans, and identifying concrete actions dedicated to advancing the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. This dissertation considers the nature of equitable climate action planning by exploring the plan content and process conditions that are required to advance socially just planning responses to climate change. The analysis is based on three key contributions: 1) an exploration and comparison of scholarly and equity-deserving perspectives regarding the meaning of social equity and climate justice; 2) an analysis and comparison of equity-related needs and priorities across cities with diverse demographics, policy environments, and social climates; and 3) an evaluation of the equity and justice orientation of a sample of municipal climate action plans. The dissertation builds an argument that current approaches to climate action planning in Canadian municipalities generally remain unresponsive to the needs and priorities of underserved communities. Key concerns include prioritizing environmental and economic imperatives relative to social equity goals, the tendency to overlook underlying drivers of inequity, the framing of equity as an incidental and ancillary benefit of climate action, and the disconnect between commitments to social justice and planned climate actions. The dissertation draws on diverse perspectives on environmental equity, climate justice, and community engagement to recommend tangible actions that could be taken by municipal planners and policymakers to strengthen the equity orientation of their climate action planning efforts.