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Environmental Justice and Climate Change Adaptation in the Context of Risk Society

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Theory and Practice of Climate Adaptation

Abstract

The latest surveys show the importance of Environmental Justice in order to guarantee the rights of marginalized parts of society to live in a healthier environment and to provide equal treatment for people regardless of race, nationality, gender or income. Following the context of risk society, this article provides a literature review that aims to identify the importance of environmental justice in achieving climate change adaptation. Through a qualitative and interdisciplinary approach, the research illustrates how interconnected climate change adaptation, risk societies and environmental justice are, in the interest of drawing attention of stakeholders and decision-makers to the distinct levels of impact that climate change has on the various sectors of society. Overall, the study emphasize that climate change adaptation strategies can often be discriminatory. By having parts of the society vulnerable to climate change impacts, the pathway towards adaptation will never be fully reached. The course to prevent those issues from being even more aggravated is to address climate change adaptation in a way that enables to benefit all groups of society by providing the information and resources for the adaptation of those living in the margins.

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted by the Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), from the University of Southern Santa Catarina (Unisul), in the context of the projects: Building Resilience in a Dynamic Global Economy: Complexity across scales in the Brazilian Food-Water-Energy Nexus (BRIDGE)), funded by the Newton Fund, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Inovação do Estado de Santa Catarina (FAPESC) and the Research Councils United Kingdom (RCUK).

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da Silveira, M.E.M. et al. (2018). Environmental Justice and Climate Change Adaptation in the Context of Risk Society. In: Alves, F., Leal Filho, W., Azeiteiro, U. (eds) Theory and Practice of Climate Adaptation. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72874-2_15

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