Interrogating Environmental Justice in the Cities of the Global South: Locally-Led Climate Adaptation for Building Community Resilience

Rapid urbanization, intensified capitalist development, services-driven economy, and consumption-driven lifestyles have heightened environmental and climate justice issues and challenges in the Global South. These development patterns drive the social-ecological transitions of cities, exacerbating the intertwining climate and disaster impacts on existing environmental inequalities and gendered intersectionalities (socio-economic status, migrant/non-migrant, etc.) in vulnerable communities. While the poor have contributed the least to global warming, they incur the most losses and damages yet receive very little public-private support. In response to these environmental and social challenges, local government units (LGUs), NGOs/CSOs, academia, and the private sector have collaborated on climate and disaster resilience innovations towards community resilience and environmental justice. Moreover, this paper interrogates the intersections of increasing climate and disaster risks, urban development, and the widening of social-environmental inequalities alongside the multiple layering of social intersectionalities in the risk governance systems of the metropolis.