Green infrastructure and energy justice in health adaptation: leveraging climate policy innovation and vulnerability-readiness nexus

ABSTRACT

In this study, we examine how climatic heat stress can be mediated by green infrastructure outcomes and how energy justice effort contributes to health adaptation within the U.S. Great Lakes regions and their primary metropolitan areas over a recent 10-year period (2005–2015). Through the lens of policy innovation and the vulnerability-readiness nexus, we explore how climate policy intervention contributes to the mitigation of heat stress by using a quantitative approach. Empirical results suggest that green infrastructure outcomes and energy justice efforts have the potential to mitigate heat stress and enhance health adaptation. Additional results reflect that climate policy innovation and readiness efforts were viable factors in health adaptation to heat events.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate adaptation
• climate justice
• heat wave
• health
• policy innovation
• vulnerability

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and The National Research Foundation of Korea: [NRF-2020S1A5A2A03043565].

Notes on contributors

Hyun Kim

Hyun Kim is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at Chungnam National University in South Korea. His research interests include urban and environmental planning and policy, climate policy, urban regeneration and gentrification, urban governance, policy innovation, science-policy integration, and mixed methods.

Kyle Maurice Woosnam

Kyle Maurice Woosnam is an Associate Professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management within the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. He is also a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Tourism and Hospitality at the University of Johannesburg. Kyle conducts community-based research on topics pertaining to interactions and relationships between destination residents and visitors, sustainable tourism planning and development, and socio-cultural and economic impacts of tourism. To date, he has conducted research in nearly 30 countries and serves on 11 journal editorial boards.

Hyewon Kim

Hyewon Kim is a doctoral student of Public Administration at Chungnam National University in South Korea. Her research, primarily based in mixed methods focuses on urban regeneration policy and planning, urban governance, policy innovation, environmental policy, and social dimensions of climate change.

Chul-Hee Lim

Chul-Hee Lim currently works at the Kookmin University in South Korea as an assistant professor. He received a doctoral degree at the Korea University as a subject on water-food-ecosystem nexus to climate change. He is currently also serving as a policy advisor to the Ministry of Unification for North Korea's forest environment field. To date, he has published over 70 articles in international and domestic peer-reviewed journals.