Abstract
The normative concepts of equity and justice are rising narratives within global climate change discourse. Despite growing considerations of climate equity and justice within the adaptation literature, the extent to which adaptation research has worked to empirically assess and operationalize concepts of equity and justice in practice remains unclear. We employ a systematic mapping approach to examine how equity and justice are defined and understood within empirical climate change adaptation research, and how extensively they are being assessed within adaptation literature. Structuring our work using a conceptual approach focusing on distributional, recognition, procedural, and capability approaches to justice, we document and review articles that included empirical assessments from searches performed in Web of Science™, Scopus®, and Google Scholar™ databases. Our results highlight that greater attention in the literature is given to certain aspects of justice (e.g. distributive and procedural justice concerns) on certain topics such as climate policy and adaptation finance. Most of the included papers scored highly according to our criteria on their empirical assessment of equity and justice. The lowest scores were found for the methodological rigor of assessments. We find limited research on empirical equity and justice assessment and call for a multiscale and holistic approach to justice to address this research gap.
Highlights
Climate change is widely regarded as one of the main threats to humanity this century, and considerable impacts are projected even if the ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 ◦C is achieved [1]
There is limited literature focused on robust empirical assessment of justice and/or equity in the context of climate adaptation Out of the extensive body of climate adaptation research that takes equity or justice into consideration, 1391 documents met our search criteria, of which 68 articles (4.9%) met our inclusion criteria
Our findings highlight the limited number of articles undertaking a methodological assessment, with a multiscale approach The limited empirical work highlighted in our findings contrasts with the substantial volume of climate adaptation literature engaging more broadly with concepts of equity and justice
Summary
Climate change is widely regarded as one of the main threats to humanity this century, and considerable impacts are projected even if the ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 ◦C is achieved [1]. Reflecting these risks, the normative concepts of equity and justice increasingly appear within the guiding principles, key considerations, and outcome goals of global climate change discourse [2, 3]. Equity is a core guiding principle within the Paris Agreement, which highlights the importance of climate justice in responding to climate change [2]. In comparison to the extensive research on equity issues related to mitigation, the social justice components of adaptation have received limited attention, despite being a central focus in academic and political arenas for the improvement of climate change policy and practice [3, 5, 8]
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