Intersectional climate action: the role of community-based organisations in urban climate justice

ABSTRACT

With climate change increasingly threatening people in uneven and disproportional ways, community-based solutions and interventions have become critical to ensure equitable, just, and inclusive climate action in cities. This paper examines community-based climate action in San Francisco (USA) through the lens of climate justice and intersectionality. Through a qualitative analysis of community-based organisations (CBOs) and their justice-oriented adaptation and mitigation efforts, our research examines the contributing factors and pathways by which CBO climate action leads to intersectional climate justice. Our analysis examines how CBOs 1) recognise and rectify historical and compounding vulnerabilities; 2) plan and act in ways that are people-centric and place-based; and 3) work collectively with organisations and government through alliances, coalitions, and participatory processes. We find that CBOs have the potential to work collectively to ensure processes are just and outcomes are equitable for those most at risk of climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based action
• climate justice
• climate governance
• urban climate change planning
• intersectionality
• San Francisco

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the CBOs, planners and advocates in San Francisco who shared their perspectives with us. The corresponding author has received support for this research from the Open University of Catalunya and the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universitat Oberta de Catalunya through a PhD grant held by the first author. This publication is part of the 2021 SGR 00975 project funded by the Department of Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Hug March is an ICREA Academia research fellow.