Procedural justice in local climate adaptation: political capabilities and transformational change

Climate adaptation politics presents both obstacles and opportunities for correcting inequities that leave some communities especially vulnerable to climate-related environmental harms. By revealing these obstacles and opportunities, theories of procedural justice can help to identify procedural reforms and political strategies that advance the interests of vulnerable populations. An account of procedural justice is proposed that foregrounds the capability for political control over one’s environment, defined as having the political power to influence adaptation decisions. While the variables shaping this capability in the politics of environmental injustice often interact in ways that reproduce environmental inequities, adaptation politics has the potential to produce more transformational outcomes. To illustrate this potential, differences between the politics of environmental injustice and the politics of climate adaptation are drawn on to sketch the basic features of a typology of vulnerable populations’ political capabilities in the politics of climate adaptation, before highlighting the potential points for intervention.