How Should Urban Climate Change Planning Advance Social Justice?

This article addresses the normative question: How should urban climate change planning advance social justice? It gathers empirical literature documenting the inclusivity and equity impacts of urban climate change planning and thematically analyses that literature for dimensions of social justice drawn from philosophical and urban justice theory. Study findings demonstrate that four characteristics of climate change planning in cities-underlying neoliberal ideology, unequal treatment, green gentrification, and exclusion from decisionmaking-comprise, create, or worsen social injustices across six dimensions. These characteristics are often interconnected and inseparable. Where neoliberal ideology guides urban climate change planning, the other three characteristics frequently occur as well. The article concludes by arguing that, at a minimum, urban planners and climate planners have an obligation of justice to avoid undertaking climate change planning that exhibits any of the four characteristics and to address injustices generated where planning has such characteristics. It further suggests that planners' negative obligations likely extend beyond this because the literature review revealed gaps in existing empirical data on the equity impacts of urban climate change planning.PMID:38588128 | DOI:10.1353/ken.2023.a899459

Source: Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal - April 8, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Bridget Pratt Source Type: research