Climate change-induced extreme weather is exacerbating housing and infrastructure precarity in many parts of the world. In the 2021 British Columbia heat dome – the deadliest weather event in Canadian history – almost all of the 595 deaths occurred at home or in a hotel. The elderly, disabled, and poor were disproportionately impacted. Climate impacts like wildfire, flooding, and rising sea levels are already pushing existing infrastructure to the breaking point. The immense social investment required to reinvent our infrastructure to survive and mitigate climate change constitutes an ambitious and wide-ranging opportunity to transform our societies.
How do we ensure that these efforts, to quote Winona LaDuke and Deborah Cowen, give us “alimentary infrastructure” that is “life-giving in its design, finance, and effects,” and do not reproduce the colonial and capitalist infrastructures that have brought us to this point? How do we ensure that climate ‘solutions’ focused on the built environment do not deepen existing inequities? This research theme involves co-developed research to develop justice-oriented approaches to transforming our built environment, and to address intersecting vulnerabilities to climate and housing precarity.
Projects and partnerships
Housing Justice in a Climate Emergency: Intersecting Tenant Vulnerabilities to Extreme Weather. Partnership with the Tenant Resource Advisory Centre (TRAC).
Contact: Rafi Arefin, Rachel Stern
People
- Gerraldine Pratt
- Maggie Low
- Rafi Arefin
- Amanda Giang
- Jess Dempsey
- Gastón Gordillo
- Rachel Stern
- Naomi Klein
- Lorien Nesbitt