Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

245 before the fairness aspects of such a policy could be widely understood and accepted, but perhaps in future, similar mechanisms could be applied within countries to fund investment in socially just adaptation. CONCLUSION In this paper I have reviewed the first wave of projects in the UK that address the social nature of vulnerability to climate change. At the time of their instigation, these projects were addressing relatively new territory in terms of adaptation research in European countries. The findings therefore represent a tentative and initial exploration of the nature of vulnerability. Further examination of the issues raised, including additional case studies from other countries and ex-post analyses of the impact of climate-related events on different social groups will be helpful. In particular, more insights are needed on the scope for adaptation interventions to reduce, or indeed to exacerbate and reinforce, patterns of social vulnerability. Although equity and justice are well-established concepts in global climate change governance (Paavola and Adger 2002), they have traditionally received much less attention at the national and subnational levels (Thomas and Twyman 2005). However, the results highlighted by this paper are broadly supported by emerging examples from other places, especially in the U.S., for example, the state of California (Cooley et al. 2012), and the cities of Phoenix and Philadelphia (Uejio et al. 2011) and New York (see Bardy 2010), where the tradition of environmental justice research and activism has evolved to consider the explicit social nature of vulnerability to climate. The existence of a strong social dynamic in climate vulnerability raises issues for the governance of adaptation. The social distribution of vulnerability should influence the way in which policy makers interpret and use climate vulnerability indicators. There is a significant and growing interest in such indicators as a tool to support adaptation decision making, for example by identifying hotspots of vulnerability at the local level and to inform climate risk assessment and adaptation planning (Füssel 2009, EEA 2012). The complex nature of social vulnerability raises two issues. First, the socio-spatial detail of indicators should be improved to better reflect layers of social vulnerability. Second, top-down assessments, such as indicator based assessments, should be complemented by bottom-up assessments with input from a variety of stakeholders, including those that are well placed to identify vulnerable groups and individuals, such as community groups and social services. Responding to these issues requires improved socioeconomic data for inclusion in vulnerability indicators and an open-minded approach to adaptation governance, in terms of who is involved in defining and assessing vulnerability, climate risk, and in the design and implementation of adaptation strategies and policies. At least in the European context, social justice has so far not been a key organizing principal or an explicit objective of national or local adaptation, despite the progress that many European countries have made in adaptation planning. Given the explicitly social nature of vulnerability to climate change, as explored above, a clearer focus on justice is warranted. Adaptation strategies should not be afraid to state their normative objectives. Achieving social justice and building the resilience of the most vulnerable individuals and groups in society should be one of the core objectives of adaptation.