Abstract
Abstract. In this intervention, we reflect on the potential of environmental justice and climate justice approaches to reveal the politics of climate change adaptation. Taking the attempts at dealing with extreme flooding events in Venice as an example, we illustrate that different dimensions at the core of the environmental justice concept (distributive and procedural justice and justice as recognition) are helpful to analyse and to politicise climate change adaptation interventions. We call for a transformative research agenda to reconfigure interventions and expertise to more closely account for the socio-political processes and narratives shaping coastal environments and to foster multiple epistemologies. Above all, this entails strengthening the inclusion of local (environmental) knowledge, the involvement of the populations affected by interventions in adaptation planning and the open discussion of political questions and values shaping interventions.
Highlights
We reflect on the potential of environmental justice (EJ) and climate justice approaches to reveal the politics of coastal climate change adaptation (CCA)
Using as a background the case of Venice and the attempts at dealing with the tide peaks that periodically flood the city, which are known as “acqua alta”, we illustrate how CCA interventions can be analysed using as a lens the different dimensions at the core of the EJ concept
Bearing in mind how EJ has developed as both a research subject and a social movement, as well as the breath of scholarly debate on the different interpretations and geographies of EJ (Carruthers, 2008; Holifield et al, 2017; Holland, 2017; Martinez-Alier, 2003; Nightingale et al, 2020; Rocle and Salles, 2018), in this paper we focus on the three key dimensions as defined by Schlosberg (2007) and Walker (2012)
Summary
We reflect on the potential of environmental justice (EJ) and climate justice approaches to reveal the politics of coastal climate change adaptation (CCA). Using as a background the case of Venice and the attempts at dealing with the tide peaks that periodically flood the city, which are known as “acqua alta” (high water), we illustrate how CCA interventions can be analysed using as a lens the different dimensions at the core of the EJ concept (distributive and procedural justice and justice as recognition). EJ approaches provide an analytical tool that helps to raise questions in relation to aspects of fairness, the equitable distribution of resources and participation while drawing attention to local contexts and communities as they bear the positive and negative effects and side-effects of climate change and CCA governance (Holifield et al, 2017; Cameron, 2012). In order to protect the city from the extreme flooding events, a system of movable dams, the Mo.S.E. (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, Experimental Electromechanical Module) is under construction
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