Social vulnerability and climate change adaptation: The critical importance of moving beyond technocratic policy approaches

Highlights

• Reliance on technocratic approaches hinders adaptation initiatives.

• Critical assessment of planning approaches for adaptation policy is necessary.

• Exploration of social vulnerability through a planning lens remains novel.

• Effective adaptation planning addresses both social and physical vulnerability.

• Complex human systems and socio-political constructs perpetuate vulnerability.

Abstract

Planning policy can play a key role in effective, equitable climate change adaptation; however, its capacity remains undermined by technocratic approaches reliant on hard measures, discounting significant research on addressing sources of social vulnerability for successful adaptation policy. Not surprisingly, little research makes use of a planning lens to explore the challenge of utilizing policy measures to address social vulnerability – particularly in relation to climate change. Through a scholarly narrative review of interdisciplinary sources an in-depth understanding of climate change vulnerability is gained and its importance in successful adaptation planning demonstrated. The urgency and complexity of climate change requires overcoming socio-political barriers within the existing adaptation paradigm, balancing technocratic methods with a collaborative approach focusing on the social, economic and ethical components of vulnerability to climate change.

Introduction

Anthropogenic climate change continues to pose significant risks to humans and the natural systems on which they rely (IPCC et al., 2014; Naylor et al., 2020; Pandey et al., 2017; Shrubsole, 2015). Because curbing greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change has been slow, wrought with political resistance and a lack of necessary collective action (Eriksen et al., 2020; Gim et al., 2019; Shrubsole, 2015; Birchall et al., 2015; Birchall, 2014), planning for adaptation and resilience is essential to humanity's ability to navigate future risk (Benevolenza and DeRigne, 2018; Siders, 2017, 2019; Williams et al., 2020). However, the overall adaptive capacity of human systems to respond to this threat is complicated by rampant social stressors which perpetuate physical and social vulnerability (Eriksen et al., 2020; IPCC et al., 2014; Mace, 2006; Naylor et al., 2020).

While adaptation planning continues to gain momentum amongst planners and policymakers (Benevolenza and DeRigne, 2018; Birchall and Bonnett, 2021; Ford and King, 2013; Siders, 2017, 2019; Williams et al., 2020), research into the aspects of climate vulnerability that reduce adaptive capacity has been controversial and incomplete in the face of the complex systems that inform adaptation (Naylor et al., 2020; Reghezza-Zitt and Rufat, 2019; Siders, 2019). Consequently, there is a persistent belief that planning for adaptation and climate resilience is best approached through technocratic means, making use of predominantly top-down methods with little or no public participation, and a heavy reliance on technology and hard measures which address only the physical aspects of climate change (Osborne, 2015; Reghezza-Zitt and Rufat, 2019; Siders, 2019; Stoett and Omrow, 2020). However, the need to move beyond hard structures is well understood (Bonnett and Birchall, 2020), and numerous social scientists continue to demonstrate that such approaches restrict our capacity to respond, while perpetuating the social and political inequalities that have led to climate change in the first place (Adger et al., 2009; Garvey, 2019; Naylor et al., 2020; Olsson et al., 2015). To overcome this discrepancy, deliberate connections need to be demonstrated within the complex systems of adaptation and vulnerability; equitable policy requires knowledge of what aspects within the human system perpetuate vulnerability, predominantly the social, economic and ethical systems that inform, and render ineffective, our approaches to adaptation policy.

The planning profession has, for the most part, shifted away from technocratic approaches toward a focus on advocacy and participatory processes, yet, for many reasons its approach to climate change has been left behind (Meerow and Newell, 2016). As climate-exacerbated hazards continue to become more frequent and intense, the social and economic consequences of climate change are likely to be considerable (Eriksen et al., 2020). When facing the looming threat of climate change, a technocratic approach is simply not enough; planning for and understanding how to address all aspects of climate vulnerability through effective and equitable policy is essential to ensure that communities are resilient, regardless of what climate change brings (IPCC et al., 2014; Pandey et al., 2017).

The intended aim of this research is to explore and ultimately facilitate critical thinking about the many multifaceted aspects of climate change vulnerability, and in this way begin to unearth the barriers in planning practice that prevent adaptation policy from being truly effective and equitable. Theoretically we draw from resilience theory (Birchall and Bonnett, 2021; Moench, 2014; Borquez et al., 2017) and governance theory (Van Assche et al., 2018, 2016; Birchall et al., 2021) and numerous interdisciplinary sources through scholarly narrative review – through which a preliminary literature scan identified a general theme (“vulnerability to climate change”), followed by a supplementary literature search into the many subthemes that occurred. Analysis of the resulting research draws on the authors’ experiences with marginalization, and education in planning and human geography; this allowed a critical analysis of planning practices that would not have otherwise been possible. This research is outlined as follows: section 2 contextualizes climate vulnerability; section 3 critically examines how vulnerability functions within our social system, ethics, and economic system; and lastly, section 4 considers both constraints and opportunities for planning and policymakers to address vulnerability to climate change and have a positive impact on all communities.