scholarly journals Getting soaked? Climate crisis, adaptation finance, and racialized austerity

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 601-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bigger ◽  
Nate Millington
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Municipal Finance ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
The City

As the effects of austerity continue to ravage cities and the impacts of climate change become more pronounced, municipal officials around the world are struggling to pay for climate adaptation. Some cities have already begun to anticipate the new infrastructures that climate change will require, while others have been forced to adapt in real time as climate crises have arrived in spectacular ways. Two of the most emblematic events are Superstorm Sandy, which drenched New York City in October 2012, and the drought-induced crisis of water scarcity in Cape Town, South Africa, which was most visible between 2016 and 2018. In both cases, the cities turned to green bonds, a form of municipal finance that foregrounds environmental ambitions. In this paper, we track the forms of adaptation projects that green borrowing are earmarked to fund. Drawing from scholarship on the financialization of nature alongside recent work on racial capitalism and austerity, we find that rather than transformative municipal change each city is largely carrying on with projects that reinscribe existing inequalities in the city. In addition to reflecting inequalities already present in the two cities, however, the use of municipal debt for adaptation intensifies risks, both financial and environmental, borne primary by the poor or working class people of color. Building on qualitative fieldwork in Cape Town, New York, and across the green bond investment chain, we argue that the risks posed by climate change in the city cannot be financialized away. Ultimately, we call for the end of municipal austerity driven by national and supranational budgeting choices in favor of increasing national funding of municipal adaptation by rescaling borrowing to higher political scales that can more progressively distribute risks.

Pathways for Mainstreaming Resilience-Thinking into Climate Change Adaptation and Planning in the City of Cape Town

2021 ◽  
pp. 229-250
Author(s):  
Luanita Snyman-van der Walt ◽  
Greg Schreiner ◽  
Surina Laurie ◽  
Michelle Audouin ◽  
Paul Lochner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Resilience Thinking ◽  
The City

Sustainability and the City

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-48
Author(s):  
Melissa Checker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Neighborhoods ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Private Industry ◽  
The City

This chapter establishes the book’s key theoretical premises, including capitalist cycles of crisis and resolution (Marx), double-bind theory (Bateson), the spatial fix (Harvey), and capitalism and schizophrenia (Deleuze and Guattari). Using New York City as an example, it discusses how city leaders resolved economic crises through the continual exploitation of natural and human resources. The constant remaking of urban neighborhoods fueled the city’s economic engine, especially as the city shifted to a real estate-based economy. Towards the end of the twentieth century, this real estate imperative coincided with increased public concern about the dangers of climate change. The broad appeal of sustainability provided the perfect cover for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s neoliberal agenda to recreate New York as a luxury city. But just as Bloomberg’s emphasis on private industry intensified the gap between the city’s rich and poor it also unevenly distributed environmental benefits and burdens.

scholarly journals Participatory integrated assessment of flood protection measures for climate adaptation in Dhaka

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anika Nasra Haque ◽  
Stelios Grafakos ◽  
Marijk Huijsman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Integrated Assessment ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Flood Protection ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

Dhaka is one of the largest megacities in the world and its population is growing rapidly. Due to its location on a deltaic plain, the city is extremely prone to detrimental flooding, and risks associated with this are expected to increase further in the coming years due to global climate change impacts as well as the high rate of urbanization the city is facing. The lowest-lying part of Dhaka, namely Dhaka East, is facing the most severe risk of flooding. Traditionally, excess water in this part of the city was efficiently stored in water ponds and gradually drained into rivers through connected canals. However, the alarming increase in Dhaka’s population is causing encroachment of these water retention areas because of land scarcity. The city’s natural drainage is not functioning well and the area is still not protected from flooding, which causes major threats to its inhabitants. This situation increases the urgency to adapt effectively to current flooding caused by climate variability and also to the impacts of future climate change. Although the government is planning several adaptive measures to protect the area from floods, a systematic framework to analyze and assess them is lacking. The objective of this paper is to develop an integrated framework for the assessment and prioritization of various (current and potential) adaptation measures aimed at protecting vulnerable areas from flooding. The study identifies, analyzes, assesses and prioritizes adaptive initiatives and measures to address flood risks in the eastern fringe area, and the adaptation assessment is conducted within the framework of multi-criteria analysis (MCA) methodology. MCA facilitates the participation of stakeholders and hence allows normative judgements, while incorporating technical expertise in the adaptation assessment. Based on the assessment, adaptive measures are prioritized to indicate which actions should be implemented first. Such a participatory integrated assessment of adaptation options is currently lacking in the decision-making process in the city of Dhaka and could greatly help reach informed and structured decisions in the development of adaptation strategies for flood protection.

scholarly journals Epistemic injustice, risk mapping and climatic events: analysing epistemic resistance in the context of favela removal in Rio de Janeiro

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-391
Author(s):  
Luciana Mendes Barbosa ◽  
Gordon Walker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Risk Mapping ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Epistemic Justice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

Abstract. Environmental and climate justice scholarship has increasingly focused on how knowledge and expertise play into the production of injustice and into strategies of resistance and activist claim making. We consider the epistemic injustice at work within the practices of risk mapping and assessment applied in Rio de Janeiro to justify the clearance of favela communities. We trace how in the wake of landslides in 2010, the city authorities moved towards a removal policy justified in the name of protecting lives and becoming resilient to climate change. We examine how favela dwellers, activists and counter-experts joined efforts to develop a partially successful epistemic resistance that contested the knowledge on which this policy was based. We use this case to reflect on the situated character of both technologies of risk and the emergence of epistemic resistance, on the relationship between procedural and epistemic justice, and on the challenges for instilling more just climate adaptation strategies.

Stop Worrying (So Much) about Exclusionary Zoning and Fight Our Real Enemies: A Reply to My Critics

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 298-311
Author(s):  
David Imbroscio
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Growth Machine ◽  
Exclusionary Zoning ◽  
Short Reply ◽  
The Right ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
The City

In this short reply, I attempt to address my critics in the limited space allotted. I show, inter alia, how the Anti–Exclusionary Zoning (Anti-EZ) Project: (1) brutally reproduces White supremacy, rather than subverting it; (2) employs pernicious neoliberal and antidemocratic means to achieve its—at best—inherently modest ends; (3) emanates from and reflects the elitist politics of the liberal professional-managerial class that locks in the neoliberal status quo, instead of building upon the emancipatory potentialities and power of grassroots, street-fighting mobilizations for housing justice and the right to the city; (4) takes massively uneven capitalist development as a given, rather than the object of contestation and resistance; (5) denies lower-income/working-class people of color vital human longings; and (6) embraces the same progrowth mentality fueling the climate crisis. We must stop worrying (so much) about EZ and fight our real enemies: neoliberalism, White supremacy/racial subjugation, elitist skepticism of democracy, and the growth machine.

scholarly journals Climate change adaptation and local government: Institutional complexities surrounding Cape Town’s Day Zero

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Godwell Nhamo ◽  
Adelaide O. Agyepong
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Landmark Learning

The challenges associated with climate change in local governments are growing daily. One such challenge is water security, an aspect that draws us to the subject matter of climate change adaptation. This article discusses findings about institutional complexities surrounding Day Zero, a concept associated with water taps running dry because of drought conditions as aggravated by climate change in the city of Cape Town, South Africa. The thrust on institutional complexities is deliberate, as this affects how crisis situations like Day Zero were handled. The data were generated mainly from the actor–actant–network theory, events study as well as document and discourse analysis methods. The actor–actant–network theory is used widely to trace how actors (humans) and actants (non-human phenomena) interact in space and time through their networks, following narratives like Day Zero, and act on climate-related matters. The analysis applied elements of grounded theory, resulting in categories and themes emerging for discussion. The article found that narratives surrounding Day Zero were embedded in both political and administrative dilemmas and red tape. Despite these challenges, the article concludes that Day Zero remains one of the landmark learning points for climate change adaptation and water security in Cape Town, South Africa, and in other cities across the world. The article recommends that Day Zero experiences continue to be embraced positively and documented further to enhance local government climate adaptation for water security currently and into the future as well.

scholarly journals Divest New York: The City of New York, C40, Fossil Fuel Divestment, and Climate Litigation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Rimmer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The City

Refereed Article. Matthew Rimmer, ‘Divest New York: The City of New York, C40, Fossil Fuel Divestment, and Climate Litigation’, (2019) 14 The Newcastle Law Review 51-77. Abstract In a case study of the City of New York, this paper explores and analyses civic, municipal narratives about climate activism, local government, fossil fuel divestment and climate litigation. Part 1 considers the integral part of the City of New York in the establishment and the evolution of the C40 Network. Part 2 focuses upon the fossil fuel divestment decision of the City of New York, and its commitment to reinvestment in respect of renewable energy and climate solutions. Part 3 examines the unsuccessful climate litigation by the City of New York against a number of major oil companies for damage caused by climate change, and the prospects of a future appeal. This paper contends that the City of New York provides an exceptional example for other cities seeking to support climate action.

Judging and Mediating for the “Long Emergency”

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-206
Author(s):  
Eleanor Stein
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Extreme Heat ◽  
Collaborative Approach ◽  
Superstorm Sandy ◽  
The City

This chapter chronicles New York City’s and New York State’s responses to Superstorm Sandy and the climate-change crisis. After the 2012 storm devastated the city and its electricity provider, Consolidated Edison, the author conducted a mediation among the utility, businesses, consumers, and academia. The collaborative approach brought disparate interests together to arrive at a settlement to improve the resilience of the system for future impacts. These included not only anticipating more damaging storms but also planning to rebuild to withstand sea-level rise, extreme heat, and the damage to the most vulnerable neighborhoods.

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