Abstract
More attention has been paid to the key role that cities play in addressing the problem of global climate change. However, research on urban climate governance has mainly looked at cities in the Global North and at climate change as a biophysical phenomenon, thereby overlooking the social implications of climate governance. This chapter adds to the growing body of literature on urban climate governance by looking at Amazonian cities through a climate justice lens. The objective of this chapter is to apply the literature on climate justice to cities in the Amazon and describe their particular characteristics and context. Firstly, we interpret data on urban development in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon. Secondly, we zoom into one Peruvian and one Brazilian Amazon city and analyse their climate policy content, paying special attention to how they frame the climate change problem. Thirdly, we look at the implications of these climate policies for equity and inclusive development. The results show that despite their rapid growth, Amazonian cities fail to integrate their climate policies with urban development policies, as well as placing them in a broader justice perspective.
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- 1.
The nine planetary boundaries are: Stratospheric ozone depletion; Loss of biosphere integrity; Chemical pollution; Climate Change; Ocean acidification and the release of novel entities; Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle; Land system change; Nitrogen and phosphorus flows to the biosphere and oceans; and Atmospheric aerosol loading.
- 2.
The nine countries that share the Amazon are: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador and French Guiana.
- 3.
Brazil’s five regions are: North, Northeast, Central West, Southeast and South.
- 4.
The seven federal states that form the Northern region are: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins.
- 5.
The five regional departments that make up the Peruvian Amazon are: Amazonas, Loreto, San Martin, Ucayali and Madre de Dios.
- 6.
The distance between the two capital cities is approximately 750 km in a straight line.
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de Wit, F. (2020). Urban Climate Governance in the Amazon. In: Smagacz-Poziemska, M., Gómez, M., Pereira, P., Guarino, L., Kurtenbach, S., Villalón, J. (eds) Inequality and Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9162-1_15
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