US cities increasingly integrate justice into climate planning and create policy tools for climate justice

Claudia V Diezmartínez & Anne G Short Gianotti, “US cities increasingly integrate justice into climate planning and create policy tools for climate justice” (2022) 13: 5763 Nature Communications, online: <www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33392-9#citeas>.  

Climate change is one of the most important ethical issues of our time. Urban scholars and policymakers now recognise the need to address justice concerns associated with cities’ responses to climate change. However, little empirical research has examined whether and how cities have integrated justice into climate mitigation planning. Here, authors show that large cities in the US are increasingly attending to justice in their climate action plans and that the recognition of structural and historical injustices is becoming more common. They demonstrate that justice is articulated differently across mitigation sectors, uncover local characteristics that may impact cities’ level of engagement with justice, and introduce four policy tools that pioneer cities have developed to operationalise just climate policies on the ground. Finally, they conclude that more attention to justice in policy implementation and evaluation is needed as cities continue to move toward just urban transitions.

Read the full article via Nature Communications!