The Climate of My Neighborhood: Households’ Willingness to Adapt to Urban Climate Change

Abstract

Regarding the predisposition of individuals to change when confronted with future climate scenarios, it is necessary to understand the perception of the groups under analysis and how to engage with society to collectively act toward climate change mitigation. A question remains to be answered: how to ensure that people engage, participate, and gain awareness of the undergoing problem that urban climate change poses for the future of cities’ management? This research intends to contribute to solving this question by raising another question: “How willing are residents of the Alvalade neighborhood (Lisbon) to change their behavior and way of life when faced with climate change scenarios?” We present a methodology using microclimatic modeling with ENVI-met and questionnaires for the resident community. The present and future local climate scenarios (representing a present hot day versus the extreme IPCC RCP 8.5 scenario) were presented to a set of residents. These figures show the projected UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) in a dramatic but accurate aggravated way. The inquiries allowed us to conclude that people are more aware of local climate change and health risks from extremely hot summer weather, but they continue to resist adopting behavior change for adaptation, although most of them declared this could be important to tackle climate change. The second conclusion is that people think that local authorities should be more active than themselves and will have greater responsibility for climate change adaptation and interventions. In times of climate crisis, the participation of the resident community can be an important help in decision making and finding measures to mitigate adverse climate effects in urban environments.