By Dr. Anjali Karol Mohan, Consulting Urban and Regional Planner; Partner at Integrated Design, Bangalore, India

Climate change presents an imminent threat to our planet with urban areas bearing the harshest impacts of extreme weather events like heat stress, droughts and or flooding. In a context where rapid urbanisation, primarily in low- and middle-income countries, is accompanied by a rapid proliferation of informal settlements (IPCC, 5^th Assessment Report), it is the poor and the marginalised who are impacted disproportionately. The crisis is inherently unjust as often these communities are left to cope with these events without support, relying on informally derived coping strategies and capacities (Mohan et. al 2022). Even as cities gear themselves to plan and implement climate action, the focus remains on mitigation. Steered by international narratives and national policy directives, mitigative actions aiming at GHG reduction remain the dominant narrative in these plans. Owing to the context-specific nature of adaptation strategies and lack of quantifiable targets (as opposed to mitigation targets like net-zero GHG emissions by 2075), adaptation strategies, particularly aiming to assist the poor and the marginalised are often glossed over or at best assume a second priority. Yet, there is an urgent need to focus on contextual adaptation strategies that go beyond short-term reactive and or knee-jerk reactions.

With the onset of summer, Indian cities are experiencing record-high temperatures (Business Standard, 2024). While the government health and disaster advisories advocate for increased water consumption and staying indoors, research and innovation in building envelope insulation exploring active and passive cooling technologies and thermal insulation methods is also gaining traction. However, there exists a critical gap – a lack of focus on outdoor spaces like streets, courtyards and open areas, also referred to as community commons. This gap is glaring in urban poor settlements where the paucity of private space, necessitates the usage of these commons as extensions of the house. The commons in effect aid everyday living – cooking, cleaning, bathing and even sleeping – and livelihoods – livestock rearing, tailoring, vending, and storage – amongst others. Yet, increasing population and densification, increased construction and concretisation (as part of redevelopment efforts) and commensurate loss of vegetation make the usage of these spaces challenging. Thus, rendering these spaces adaptive is critical for immediate gains while achieving long-term goals of social justice.

Drawing upon our action research across multiple Indian cities, we establish community commons as socially just and adaptive spaces (Mohan et al. 2020). Exploring the usage and functionality of the commons and, the coping mechanisms to deal with heat stress allowed for co-producing (through multi-stakeholder participation involving communities and non-governmental organisations) adaptation strategies critical to aid everyday living and livelihoods. Focusing largely on passive technologies, several Nature-based Solutions were arrived at. These include detention ponds to trap pollutants, green buffers along the selected streets; vegetative islands, food forests, previous roads, and installing shaded trellis amongst others. The overall objective was to render commons as transformative spaces in building resilient communities (Refer to Figure)

Further, multi-stakeholder workshops were organised with the state as an important stakeholder where efforts were made to institutionalise these strategies within formal city climate action plans. The need for sharing platforms and continuous deliberations emerged as critical in breaking the power hierarchies between the state and community while ushering in accountability measures (Mohan and Muraleedharan 2024).g

References:

1. Business Standard. (2024, May 26). Intense heatwave: 37 cities record temperatures over 45 degrees Celsius. @Bsindia; Business Standard. https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/intense-heatwave-37-cities-record-temperature-over-45-degrees-celsius-124052600671_1.html
2. IPCC (2014). 5th Assessment Report. In IPCC. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/
3. Mohan, A. K., & Muraleedharan, G. (2024). Exploring co-production in redirecting climate urbanism. Climate and Development, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2024.2339249
4. Suri, S. (2023). It’s time for climate justice- A Global South perspective on the fight against the climate crisis.org. https://www.orfonline.org/research/a-global-south-perspective-on-the-fight-against-the-climate-crisis
5. Mohan, A. K., Muraleedharan, G., & Aristizabal, J. G. (2022). Socially Just and Adaptive Spaces. Landscape.

Figure: (1) Varying surface temperatures of different materials causing increased heat stress, (2) Multiple usage Commons: Janatha Colony, Bangalore, (3) Use of Green Sheets and Cloth as heat barriers: Nehru Colony, Bhopal. Source: Integrated Design.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.