Equity

Existing social systems perpetuate the inequitable impacts of climate change. Communities can promote equity and climate justice by shifting power to the community members who are impacted by the problems and solutions at hand.

Key points:

Social systems are changing the climate and distributing its impacts inequitably.

Social systems structure how people know and communicate about climate change.

Climate justice is possible if processes such as migration and energy transitions are equitable.

Key points from the Social Systems and Justice chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment

Incorporating Equity in Resilience Planning

A graphic depicting the Steps to Resilience centered on equity, with components of iteration, monitoring, and evaluation.

The Steps to Resilience are centered on equity. Click the image for a larger view.

Putting equity at the center of climate resilience planning can lead to a cascade of positive changes for communities. As leaders and community members work together to eliminate factors such as race, income, and ability as determinants of who can withstand or bounce back from the impacts of climate change, they thrive together, building resilience for all.

Equitable planning processes serve as public demonstrations that opportunities are available to everyone, no matter their background. Centering equity in every decision of the planning process can help groups come up with inclusive solutions that work for everyone.

Components of Equity

Climate resilience plans can focus on any or all of the following types of equity. Focusing on which types of equity a project promotes is one way to recognize which types still represent opportunities.

Procedural equity focuses on ensuring that programs, policies, and processes are fair and inclusive for all. Strategies that invite and prepare new participants from under-represented groups into decision-making contexts increase procedural equity.

Distributional equity is concerned that resources, opportunities, and benefits of programs as well as the costs or reporting burdens they incur are shared fairly. Projects that increase access to affordable housing, healthy food outlets, and affordable medical care are working to increase distributional equity.

Structural equity, sometimes referred to as intergenerational equity, addresses underlying systems that create and perpetuate inequities in society. Projects focused on structural equity work to correct past harms and prevent future negative consequences; they address root causes of differential vulnerability through changes in policies, law, and governance.

Cultural equity values the diverse backgrounds within a community. Projects that build cultural equity emphasize the importance of including, respecting, and celebrating different groups in decision-making processes. Such projects display a commitment to undoing racism and instituting equitable multicultural norms.

A subset of case studies in the Toolkit now include Equity Insights: brief descriptions provide concrete examples of how communities are integrating equity into their climate resilience planning.

Shifting power to the community

The graphic below shows the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership. The spectrum characterizes the dynamics of engagement in an innovative way that helps leaders recognize the benefits of shifting power to community members. This powerful tool, developed by Rosa González of Facilitating Power, promotes deep participation by communities commonly excluded from democratic voice and power. Access the Spectrum in its 14-page booklet to learn strategies for shifting power to the community members who are or will be impacted by the problems and solutions at hand.

Chart with columns and rows describing characteristics of engagement

The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership describes developmental stages for shifting engagements toward community-driven decision-making. Click the image for a larger view.

Guiding Principles

Another useful resource from Rosa González and the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners, Community Driven Climate Resilience Planning: A Framework » offers the following principles for resilience planning:

Focus on root causes and community strengths

Counter systemic injustices by centering belonging, equity, and justice in climate adaptation planning and implementation.

Acknowledge the historical antecedents of climate change and the disproportionate impacts of its effects on people, communities, and cultures.
Address the root causes of conflicts among the needs of people, the environment, and the economy to begin the process of dismantling existing systems of power imbalance.
Maintain a positive mindset about the positive attributes and strengths that communities bring.

Balance power dynamics

Advocate for community co-creation of plans, ensuring those most impacted are involved in decision-making.

Challenge the top-down approach to planning and include community members as equal collaborators throughout all project phases.
Focus on alliances that empower historically marginalized communities to influence decision-making and drive change.

Foster a sense of belonging

Acknowledge past and present harms within the community and work towards healing and reconciliation. Establish reciprocal trust with community partners and ensure they are equal stakeholders.

Develop cultural competence about the community and devote energy to understanding systemic oppression.
Get to know and build friendly relationships with community members and leaders.

Apply a place-based approach

More than 90 percent of U.S. municipalities have fewer than 25,000 people. Local governments play an essential role in allocating their limited resources to address the complex challenge of climate change impacts. Both “bottom up” community planning and “top down” national strategies may help regions deal with impacts such as increases in electrical brownouts, heat stress, floods, and wildfires. Acheiving this mix of approaches will require cross-boundary coordination at multiple levels as operational agencies integrate adaptation planning into their programs. Acting in isolation at the local scale can reduce the effectiveness of adaptive responses or lead to maladaptation. Cross-jurisdictional, cross-functional, cross-cultural collaboration is key. In a place-based systems approach, the local community is the primary source of knowledge. Community members are involved in every step of the process in an iterative process that honors learning and accommodates different competencies.

Evolve with the process

A common pitfall of community-driven planning is that the process is often viewed in linear steps to a predetermined objective, which is subjected to minor revisions upon community review or forced upon the community regardless of their opinions. A community plan is likely to fail without community buy-in. In addition, many planning efforts stall before implementation due to lack of resources and political will.

The entire process of integrating equity into a climate resilience approach must be viewed as an iterative process that continues beyond implementation. Co-creating and implementing an equitable resilience plan is long-term process that builds lasting relationships among the community and other decision makers. To be effective, this process needs to bridge the divide between community members and governance structures.

More opportunities to promote equity

Solutions that explicitly advance equity often require additional considerations before they can be implemented. Introducing new processes where current or past projects have been in place can have unintended consequences.

The following questions can help you consider co-benefits of equity-related solutions. The list was co-developed by D. Williams-Rajee and community partners for Portland and Multnomah County’s Climate Action through Equity plan.

Goal	Question
Shared Benefits	Can the benefits of action reduce historical or current disparities?
Engagement	Can the action engage and empower in a meaningful, authentic and culturally appropriate manner?
Capacity Building	Can the action help build community capacity through funding, and expanded knowledge base or other resources?
Alignment & Partnership	Can the action align with and support priorities of frontline communities, create an opportunity to leverage resources and build collaborative partnerships?
Relationship Building	Can the action help foster the building of effective, long-term relationships and trust between diverse communities and local government?
Economic Opportunity & Staff Diversity	Does the option support frontline communities through workforce development, contracting opportunities or increased diversity of city and county staff?
Accountability	Does the option have accountability mechanisms to ensure frontline communities will equitably benefit and not be disproportionately harmed?
Disproportionate Impacts (of actions)	Does the action generate burdens to frontline and marginalized communities?
Accessibility	Are the benefits of the action broadly accessible to households and businesses throughout the community – particularly, communities of color, low income individuals and emerging small businesses?

For more information on Equity, see the Social Systems and Justice Chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment »

Banner Image Credit:

Capital Pride Heroes Gala, Washington, DC, by Ted Eytan. Used via a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, via Wikimedia Commons.

Last modified:

31 October 2024 - 1:45pm