Climate justice and public urban spaces: unequal experiences of thermal discomfort.Climate shelters, public services, and innovative solutions to address social-environmental vulnerabilities.

Abstract

The year 2023 has been confirmed as the warmest on record, driven by human-caused climate change. The phenomenon is prominent in urban areas where the heat island effect led to local microclimates characterized by higher temperatures and increased frequency and duration of heat waves. Extreme temperatures disproportionately affect individuals. The elderly, children, and individuals with disabilities or chronic diseases are the most exposed, but also social positions and housing inadequacy can exacerbate vulnerability to climate risks.

Efforts to integrate climate mitigation and adaptation actions into urban policies and urban structure are burgeoning globally and many cities are rethinking their public spaces and urban amenities amidst climate crises (McShane & Coffey, 2022). Cities like Barcelona and Paris have created a network of climate shelters, a relatively low-cost strategy that can utilize existing indoor and outdoor infrastructures (civic centers, libraries, museums, sports centers, schools, gardens, and urban parks) to provide thermal comfort to the population while maintaining other uses and functions and be relatively easily implemented by a variety of stakeholders.

At the same time, awareness is increasing about narrative and analytical review methods that present justice only in terms of accessibility by proximity and vulnerability as age and health status.

In operationalizing justice-oriented climate adaptation strategies, poor attention has so far been paid to the ability to walk distances with no heat stress or intersectional inequalities (e.g. race, gender or income) (Amorim-Maia et al., 2023; Melnikov et al., 2022).

Based on these considerations, the paper aims to analyse the role that climate shelters can actually play in promoting justice in climate adaptation. The Italian city of Turin is used as a case study for a couple of reasons: on the one side, according to future climate projections this city is going to face increasing hot waves and heat urban islands, which can increase mortality risks for vulnerable population; on the other side, Turin is redefining the mission of its public libraries as community hubs, which could play also as climate shelters.

Therefore, the paper examines the actual spatial and socio-economic accessibility of these libraries to over-65 people, who are the most vulnerable subjects to extremely hot summer days. The spatial accessibility is verified considering the real walking speed of the elderly, as well as their path choices (which can prioritize longer but more shaded routes) based on thermic comfort (Willberg et al., 2023). The socio-economic accessibility will be inspected by crossing the profile of traditional users of Turin’s libraries with the intersectional features of subjects more impacted by climate change (over-65 which are also women, low-income, poorly educated etc.). These analyses will be used to identify which areas of the city of Turin are more exposed and vulnerable to climate risk and at the same time less covered by libraries as climate shelters; proposals for increasing their spatial accessibility (by increasing walkability and thermal comfort of streets) and/or their socio-economic accessibility (through communication campaigns for increasing their availability, complexification of offered services etc.) will be developed to increase climate justice of these adaptation actions.      

Finally, based on the results of the case study analyses, a few reflections are proposed regarding the importance of a multi-dimensional approach to the accessibility of urban indoor and outdoor amenities and facilities in promoting adaptation strategies to face climate change.