What is Climate Just?

Climate Just is an information tool designed to help with the delivery of equitable responses to climate change at the local level. Its main focus is to assist the development of socially just responses to the impacts of extreme events, such as flooding and heatwaves, as well as supporting wider climate change adaptation. It also includes issues related to fuel poverty and carbon emissions.

 

What does the website contain?

The website contains new data resources and collates existing data and information into user-friendly summaries and guidance. It includes:

• Information and presentations on why socially just responses are important and relevant. Presentations have been updated in 2017, particularly to provide more context for users from Scotland and Wales.
• Evidence summaries explaining who is socially vulnerable and which places are disadvantaged with respect to different climate change impacts and why
• New map data showing where extreme events like floods and heat waves are likely to have the biggest impacts as a result of the characteristics of people and communities. Most recently new social vulnerability and social flood risk data have been added for the whole of the UK
• Information about how communities may experience further disadvantage through policy, such as through the effects of energy and carbon reduction measures on fuel poverty
• Suggestions for local decision-makers on what to do to respond and how to start taking action
• Case studies to show what others have done and how they have done it
• Signposting to other tools and resources to help with sourcing additional evidence and materials to support action.

 

What tasks can the Climate Just resources help you with?

Through using this website, you can expect to:

• Become more aware of the key issues associated with developing socially just responses to climate change
• Understand the range of people who might be vulnerable to the impacts of different forms of flooding, heat-waves and other climate-related events
• Assess local patterns of social vulnerability and connect these to actions which take account of the needs of vulnerable communities
• Identify who needs to be involved in developing socially just adaptation responses to take account of climate impacts
• Develop ideas on possible strategies and actions that can be taken to address the issues
• Make a case for equitable action taking account of the policy, ethical and legal issues involved
• Learn from others through case studies based on local action to embed socially just responses to climate change
• Find out about other relevant resources and materials that can be used to help support the development of just responses to climate change.

 

Who is the website for?

The information in this website is for anyone with an interest in addressing the negative impacts of climate or weather related events, but is especially targeted at public service providers, those working with vulnerable communities such as local authorities and their partners in social care, health, housing and the voluntary and community sectors.

 

How can you use the website?

You can navigate the website through:

• The map tool – access maps to build an understanding of the potential for negative impacts in your local area
• Key questions – click on one of the questions for information about:
  • What the main concerns are
  • Why they are important
  • Where they are important
  • What to do about it
  • How to do it
  • Where to go to find further tools, information and resources.
• Free text search – enter a topic of interest into the search engine to find related evidence and resources
• Browsing other content - such as local case studies of actions taken.

 

Who produced the website?

The materials in this website are the product of a large set of contributors. This includes a research team at the University of Manchester (Sarah Lindley, Aleksandra Kazmierczak, Angela Connelly and John O'Neill), with support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Katharine Knox), the Environment Agency (Rachel Walters), JBA Consulting (Rachel Brisley, Janet Spence and Jennifer Sutton), Centre for Sustainable Energy (Zoe Redgrove) and Climate UK (Mike Peverill, Kristen Guida, Juliette Daniels, Adrian Hilton, Alex Hopkinson and Hannah Caplin). We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of various stakeholders who helped to review material (including Public Health England, Environment Agency and Innovate UK) and the JRF’s project advisory group who supported this project during both content development and website production.

Website development was carried out by Creative Concern, Climate UK and the University of Manchester. The map tool was developed by Richard Kingston at the University of Manchester.

The project was jointly funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of its Climate Change and Social Justice Programme and by the Environment Agency Midlands Region. Additional work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, through their Impact Accelerator Account and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

New map data for social vulnerability and social flood risk has been produced by Sayers and Partners ‘Sayers, P.B., Horritt, M., Penning Rowsell, E., and Fieth, J. (2017). Present and future flood vulnerability, risk and disadvantage: A UK scale assessment. A report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published by Sayers and Partners LLP. The NFVI and SFRI data remains the IPR of Sayers and Partners LLP but is provided free of charge for non-commercial use within the climate just website. This excludes commercial use of the data (selling or reselling the data directly or within derived products, or for paid research or consultancy).

Additional data restrictions, required acknowledgements and caveats apply, see the Map Tool. The resources have been developed and tested with a wide range of user representatives from local authorities and other organisations. Every effort has been made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, but this cannot be guaranteed. It should be noted that the 2017 revisions have not included a full revision of all content. Users are invited to provide feedback to help with ongoing site maintenance and content update via the Contact form at the bottom of each page.

Disclaimer: The majority of the text in this website is based on materials originally provided by the University of Manchester (Sarah Lindley, Aleksandra Kazmierczak, Angela Connelly, Caitlin Robinson and John O'Neill) in 2013 and 2014, with some updating in 2017 (Sarah Lindley and Ioanna Tantanasi). The views expressed in the content do not necessarily reflect those of the whole team.