Volume 3: Issue 3 | Planning for Transformative Climate Resilience

Building climate resilience that fosters equitable development, governance, and support to vulnerable populations requires an understanding of climate issues which is based on inclusive and socially-just principles. This is especially important considering the disproportionate impacts of the ongoing climate crisis on marginalized communities.1 This issue of City Research Insights (CRI) reports on an action research project that works to advance practices and theories that support evidence-based climate resilience, which is especially important in Southeast Asia, as current policies tend to focus only on climate-proofing infrastructures (i.e., framing climate as a technical problem). Additionally, policymakers report their lack of expertise regarding how to apply climate resilience knowledge that incorporates social vulnerability concepts. Ongoing transdisciplinary empirical research remains necessary to address these barriers and knowledge gaps in the contextual implementation of just and effective environmental policies. This action research study engaged policymakers in learning to implement transformative policies to support climate justice in three rapidly urbanizing Southeast Asian (SEA) cities: Battambang, Cambodia; Khon Kaen, Thailand; and Ninh Binh, Vietnam. The project focused on operationalizing climate justice and building the receptive capacity of policymakers, and this report explores how researchers can support policy change towards transformative resilience.