Research on Social Justice Issues and Governance Paths in Urban Climate Resilience Construction

Abstract

With a focus on the social equity issues in the construction of urban climate resilience, this paper employs the analytical system of environmental justice and climate equity, draws upon domestic and foreign experiences in urban climate adaptation, and identifies the main problems in social equity at the core of resilience construction. Research has found that the inequity is manifested in five ways: spatial clustering of vulnerable groups and a mismatch in resilience resources; concealment of fairness issues through technical governance paths; lack of voice for disadvantaged groups in community participation; deficit in fairness of adaptation fund allocation; and neglect of fairness dimensions in governance system design. The five types of problems are not independent; rather, they are linked together and work in concert to produce an institutional reproduction of vulnerability. Based on the above analysis, the following paths have been proposed: differentiation of resilience planning, participation-based governance mechanism, fairness-oriented fund allocation system, decision-making framework with fairness assessment, and multi-party collaborative governance network. Transferring the concept of social equity from a secondary consideration to an essential component of resilience-building is necessary to address the conflict between efficiency and fairness in urban climate governance.