Evidence Review Climate Change and Social Justice Katharine Knox, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Nick Banks, Ian Preston, Simon Roberts, Katy Hargreaves, CSE.

Evidence Review Climate Change and Social Justice

Katharine Knox, Joseph Rowntree FoundationNick Banks, Ian Preston, Simon Roberts, Katy Hargreaves, CSEClare Downing, Roger Street , Ruth Mayne and Karen Lucas, OUCE, ECI and UKCIP – University of OxfordAleksandra Kazmierczak, University of Manchester

Evidence review: climate change and social justice

Climate change and social justice: Impacts

Impacts of climate change

Impacts

Direct(in the UK)

Indirect (overseas affecting the UK)

Immediate effects

Tangible Intangible

After Houston et al (2011) Pluvial(rain related) flooding in urban areas: The invisible hazard

Longer lasting effects

Tangible Intangible

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

• 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 (? )

• Evidence of socially justice adaptation responses is limited and it is not clear that that they work yet... Found in 4 areas :

1. heat waves, 2. water scarcity and drought, 3. flooding and 4. 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

• 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