scholarly journals Transnational Support for Urban Climate Adaptation: Emerging Forms of Agency and Dependency

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric K. Chu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Institutional Culture ◽  
External Support ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Spatial Strategies ◽  
Transnational Actors ◽  
Economic Constraints ◽  
Political Economic

Transnational actors are critical for financing programs and generating awareness around climate change adaptation in cities. However, it is unclear whether transnational support actually enables more authority over adaptation actions and whether outcomes address wide-ranging development needs. In this article, I compare experiences from three cities in India—Surat, Indore, and Bhubaneswar—and link local political agency over adaptation with their supporting transnational funders. I find that adaptation governance involves powers of agency over directing bureaucratic practices, public finance, spatial strategies, and institutional culture. A city’s ability to exert these powers then yields different patterns of adaptation. However, political agency is circumscribed by a combination of historical political economic constraints and emerging transnational resources that promote specific forms of political meaning and procedures. The presence of external support therefore paradoxically constrains the governance autonomy of cities. This opens up new opportunities for development dependency—that is, ones that mirror neoliberal critiques of foreign aid—within the global marketplace for climate finance.

scholarly journals Entrepreneurial Strategies to Address Rural-Urban Climate-Induced Vulnerabilities: Assessing Adaptation and Innovation Measures in Dhaka, Bangladesh

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9115
Author(s):  
Jason Miklian ◽  
Kristian Hoelscher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Entrepreneurial Strategies ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Adaptation And Mitigation

Climate change amplifies social, political, economic, infrastructural and environmental challenges in many Global South cities, and perhaps no city is more vulnerable than Bangladesh’s capital of Dhaka. Climate-induced rural–urban migration is a profound concern, and Dhaka’s political leaders have embraced technology-based innovation as one solution pathway. This article explores the societal impact of Dhaka’s innovation environment strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Employing a case study qualitative methodology, our three findings expand knowledge about innovation for urban climate adaptation and mitigation as understood by Dhaka-based entrepreneurs. First, the most effective innovations were not the most technologically advanced, but those with the highest degree of participant ownership. Second, gaps between recipient, corporate and governmental understandings of effective mitigation and adaptation harmed projects were driven by different definitions of risk and competing understandings of vulnerability. Third, even the most technical climate adaptation measures were inherently political in their application. We discuss how to better position urban climate innovation infrastructures in Bangladesh and beyond, including developing a better recognition of innovation lifecycles for urban climate adaptation and widening our definitions of “innovation” to better incorporate more effective and inclusive climate adaptation solutions.

scholarly journals Comparative infrastructural modalities: Examining spatial strategies for Melbourne, Auckland and Vancouver

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 816-836 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny McArthur
Keyword(s):  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Infrastructure Systems ◽  
Global Competitiveness ◽  
Spatial Strategies ◽  
Challenging Environment ◽  
Support Housing ◽  
Political Economic

Infrastructure systems are critical to support sustainable and equitable urbanisation, and infrastructure is becoming more prominent within urban spatial strategies. However, the fragmented governance and delivery of spatial plans and infrastructure projects create a challenging environment to embed planning goals across the planning, delivery and operation of infrastructure systems. There is significant uncertainty around future needs and the complex ways that infrastructures influence socio-spatial relations and political-economic processes. Additionally, fragmented knowledge of infrastructure across different disciplines undermines the development of robust planning strategies. Comparative analysis of strategic spatial plans from Auckland, Melbourne and Vancouver examines how infrastructures are instrumentalised to support planning goals. Across the three cases, the analysis identified four common infrastructural modalities: rescaling socio-spatial relations through targeted intensification, intra-urban mobility upgrades and containment boundaries; re-localising socio-spatial relations to the suburban scale with ‘complete communities’; protection of ‘gateway’ precincts; and local planning provisions to support housing affordability. By examining infrastructure through a theoretical framework for suburban infrastructures, this analysis revealed how infrastructures exert agency as artefacts shaping socio-spatial relations and through the internalisation of political-economic processes. Each modality mobilised infrastructure to support goals of global competitiveness, economic growth and ‘liveability’. Findings suggest that spatial strategies should take a user-focused approach to infrastructure to meet the needs of diverse urban populations, and engage directly with the modes of infrastructure project delivery to embed planning goals across design, delivery and operations stages. Stronger institutional mandates to control land-use and provide affordable housing would improve outcomes in these city-regions.

scholarly journals The motley drivers of heat and cold exposure in 21st century US cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (35) ◽  
pp. 21108-21117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Mark Broadbent ◽  
Eric Scott Krayenhoff ◽  
Matei Georgescu
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Cold Exposure ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Heat Exposure ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Relative Significance ◽  
Metropolitan Regions

We use a suite of decadal-length regional climate simulations to quantify potential changes in population-weighted heat and cold exposure in 47 US metropolitan regions during the 21st century. Our results show that population-weighted exposure to locally defined extreme heat (i.e., “population heat exposure”) would increase by a factor of 12.7–29.5 under a high-intensity greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and urban development pathway. Additionally, end-of-century population cold exposure is projected to rise by a factor of 1.3–2.2, relative to start-of-century population cold exposure. We identify specific metropolitan regions in which population heat exposure would increase most markedly and characterize the relative significance of various drivers responsible for this increase. The largest absolute changes in population heat exposure during the 21st century are projected to occur in major US metropolitan regions like New York City (NY), Los Angeles (CA), Atlanta (GA), and Washington DC. The largest relative changes in population heat exposure (i.e., changes relative to start-of-century) are projected to occur in rapidly growing cities across the US Sunbelt, for example Orlando (FL), Austin (TX), Miami (FL), and Atlanta. The surge in population heat exposure across the Sunbelt is driven by concurrent GHG-induced warming and population growth which, in tandem, could strongly compound population heat exposure. Our simulations provide initial guidance to inform the prioritization of urban climate adaptation measures and policy.

scholarly journals Awareness of urban climate adaptation strategies –an international overview

Urban Climate ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 100705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanda Lenzholzer ◽  
Gerrit-Jan Carsjens ◽  
Robert D. Brown ◽  
Silvia Tavares ◽  
Jennifer Vanos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Adaptation Strategies

Reforming the EU Budget: Reconciling Needs with Political‐Economic Constraints

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Heinemann ◽  
Philipp Mohl ◽  
Steffen Osterloh
Keyword(s):  
Economic Constraints ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Eu

Economie Action and Buddhist Morality in a Thai Village

1983 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 851-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles F. Keyes
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rational Calculation ◽  
Economic Constraints ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Central Thailand

Although the Thai-Lao peasants living in rain-fed agricultural communities in northeastern Thailand have experienced some improvements in their socioeconomic situation as a consequence of the growth of the Thai economy since the mid-1950s, these peasants still constitute the poorest sector of the population of Thailand. Moreover, the socioeconomic position of the rural northeastern Thai populace has actually declined relative to that of the urban populace and that of the rural populace living in central Thailand. The economic disadvantageous position of Thai-Lao peasants is linked with a sense of being an ethnoregional minority within a polity that has been highly centralized since reforms instituted at the end of the nineteenth century. Much of the social action of Thai-Lao peasants with reference to the political-economic constraints on their world can be understood, as long-term research in one community reveals, as having been impelled by rational calculation aimed at improving the well being of peasant families. The ways in which peasants have assessed in practice the justice of these constraints as well as the ways in which they have assessed the limits to entrepreneurship must be seen, however, as being rooted in moral premises that Thai-Lao villagers have appropriated from Theravada Buddhism as known to them in their popular culture.

EU-Kohäsionspolitik: Finanzielle Fehlanreize und die Suche nach dem europäischen Mehrwert

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Heinemann
Keyword(s):  
Added Value ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Structural Funds ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Comprehensive Reform ◽  
Economic Constraints ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Regional Programs ◽  
Reform Needs ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThis article analyzes both, the reform needs and reform obstacles of EU cohesion spending. Although the empirical evidence is unable to substantiate an European added value, structural funds continue to absorb an increasing amount of resources. The analysis reveals several shortcomings of this policy: First, EU regional programs have neglected institutional constraints on the side of recipient countries and regions. Second, an inflation of policy objectives makes a clear performance measurement increasingly impossible. And third, through the inclusion of rich regions into its programs, cohesion spending has lost its focus. To tackle these shortcomings, a comprehensive reform package is recommended which includes new incentives on the financing side of the EU budget. Only increasing regional co-financing or other financing innovations can reduce disincentives from common pool-financing and overcome reform resistance. Without any such financing side reforms, merely some incremental reforms are consistent with political-economic constraints.

scholarly journals Für eine Feministische Politische Ökologie des Klimawandels

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (174) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hackfort
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Reflective Power ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Political Economic

Social science climate research falls significantly short of the reflective power of feminist thought when it comes to the role of gender and its intersection with other categories of social difference and hierarchy in adaptation to climate change. This article seeks to narrow this gap by broadening the perspectives for an analysis of gender and adaptation to climate change from an intersectional and Political Ecology perspective. It argues for an multi-level framework that considers and relates three analytical levels: the political economic mechanisms of hierarchization, which shape the individual and collective scope of action through their material gender-, and class- or age specific effects, the effects of hegemonic representations and discourses, and the subject level in order to capture the identity political dynamics that contribute to unequal options for climate adaptation among subjects. It provides empirical illustrations from a case study in Mexico/Chiapas.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document