Systems Thinking and Climate Equity

  Resilience Through Climate Justice

Climate disruption is no longer a distant possibility; it is a daily condition that magnifies existing social and economic divides. Although its environmental manifestations such as heat intensification, shifting ecosystems, and more frequent climate extremes are widely documented, the deeper injustice lies in how unevenly these impacts are distributed. Vulnerable communities that have historically been pushed to the margins continue to bear the greatest weight of climate harm, underscoring that the challenge is rooted not only in environmental change but in long-standing systemic imbalances (Scott et al., 2022).

Where fragile ecosystems meet weak governance structures, outdated or exclusionary policies, and legacies of structural inequity, climate impact escalate. Understanding this intersection calls for leaders who can look beyond isolated symptoms and instead recognize the interconnected forces shaping vulnerability and resilience (Godden & Tehan, 2016).

This editorial articulates a personal approach to social impact leadership informed by systems thinking, climate justice, and cross-sector partnerships. It integrates a range of scholarly works that, taken together, illuminate both shared ideas and points of divergence in current understandings of climate resilience and its practical application.

Structural Pathways of Risk

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2022) showed that extreme heat, flooding, and air pollution place the heaviest burdens on low-income communities, Indigenous peoples, and racial or ethnic minorities. Even with its strong scientific evidence, the IPCC (2022) often treated social vulnerability in broad terms and gave limited attention to the political, historical, and economic conditions that shaped risk in specific communities.Yet, although its findings were scientifically rigorous, the IPCC often treated social vulnerability in broad terms and gave limited attention to the specific political, historical, and economic forces that shaped risk in particular communities. In contrast, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, 2023) directly linked climate exposure to systemic inequities, emphasizing that historical marginalization and policy decisions determined whose well-being was most jeopardized. UNEP added essential normative framing but relied less on original empirical evidence than the IPCC. Both, the IPCC (2022) and UNEP (2023), offered two essential perspectives: one provided the scientific evidence of unequal climate impacts, and the other explained the structural forces that created those inequalities.

Across the 401 municipal adaptation plans that Araos et al. (2016) reviewed—from cities in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia—many plans stated that protecting vulnerable populations was a priority. Yet only a small share translated that commitment into concrete steps. Fewer than 15% defined how vulnerability would be identified or tracked over time, and most cities offered only a single public meeting as their form of community engagement. The gap between the stated concern for vulnerable groups and the failure to include equity measures or sustained community engagement showed that participation was often symbolic rather than meaningful.

Hardoy and Velásquez Barrero (2014) found that resident-led initiatives, particularly those organized by women’s networks and informal neighborhood associations in low-income Latin American settlements, often produced more effective resilience outcomes than government programs. In several Buenos Aires districts women established shared water-collection systems, created community-run early-warning processes during flood seasons, and negotiated for improved drainage maintenance. These women-led efforts reduced flood-related losses more rapidly and efficiently than municipal plans delayed by administrative procedures.

Comparable forms of women-centered environmental leadership are evident in Southern Iraq, where the Women and the Environment Organization (WATEO) developed a model for inclusive climate and resource governance in the Iraqi Marshlands. Established in 2005, WATEO emerged from direct requests by tribal communities who sought support in addressing severe water contamination, deteriorating ecosystem conditions, and the social consequences of post-conflict environmental collapse. Building on these consultations, WATEO introduced a participatory framework that trained women to engage in water management, environmental monitoring, and local decision-making processes (Women and the Environment, 2010). The approach emphasized that women, as primary users and managers of household water resources, held critical knowledge about daily environmental challenges and were central to any sustainable adaptation strategy.

While Hardoy and Velásquez Barrero’s work provided context-specific insights into grassroots innovation, it lacked the statistical breadth of Araos et al. (2016) and therefore could not assert that these dynamics occurred uniformly across all regions.

Structural Roots of Climate Inequity

Berberian et al. (2022) offered a different perspective on climate injustice by showing how redlining, chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, and patterns of racial segregation continued to shape climate-related health risks for minority communities in the United States. Berberian et al. (2022) showed that neighborhoods labeled “hazardous” in the 1930s continued to experience hotter temperatures, fewer trees, poorer air quality, and higher rates of asthma and heat-related illness. In many of these formerly redlined areas, temperatures rose several degrees above those in adjacent neighborhoods, turning routine heat waves into dangerous events for residents with limited access to cooling, consistent healthcare, or safe transportation.

Although Berberian et al. (2022) provided strong empirical evidence, the study’s U.S.-focused dataset limited how broadly its findings could be applied in global contexts. Their findings showed how historic discrimination can become embedded in present-day climate vulnerability patterns visible in many regions of the world, though shaped by different political and social contexts. The analysis from Berberian et al. (2022) also offered a more explicit causal explanation than the work of Araos et al. (2016), which focused primarily on gaps within contemporary adaptation planning. Whereas Araos et al. identified weaknesses in current policy design and implementation, Berberian et al. traced present-day climate inequalities to the historical structures that created and sustained those risks.

Justice-Centered Resilience

Meerow and Newell (2016) emphasized a central but often overlooked question in adaptation planning: resilience for whom. They showed that cities frequently celebrated resilience initiatives as universally beneficial even when projects such as seawalls, green corridors, or transit upgrades raised property values or accelerated displacement in neighborhoods already facing the highest climate risks. Their analysis demonstrated that resilience is not a neutral technical achievement but a political decision about whose safety and wellbeing are prioritized.

Schlosberg et al. (2017) argued that just adaptation requires attention to three forms of equity; procedural, distributional, and recognition. They noted that even well-intentioned measures, such as evenly distributed cooling centers, can overlook the barriers faced by elderly residents, undocumented migrants, or individuals with limited mobility. Their framework underscored that equity principles remain theoretical unless public and nonprofit leaders translate them into practices such as co-designed planning processes, targeted investments in historically underserved communities, and communication strategies grounded in local cultural contexts.

Conclusion

Real resilience in marginalized communities has never come from technology alone. It grows from leadership willing to see the bigger system at work, acknowledge the weight of historical injustice, and invite communities to shape their own adaptation strategies. The environmental scan makes this pattern unmistakable: vulnerability is produced by systems, inequity is embedded in structures, and meaningful resilience takes hold only when different kinds of knowledge, scientific, local, political, and experiential, work together toward justice-focused goals.

References

Aguilar, F. J. (1967). Scanning the business environment. Macmillan. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1970304959851544194

Araos, M., Berrang-Ford, L., Ford, J. D., Austin, S. E., Biesbroek, R., & Lesnikowski, A. (2016). Climate change adaptation planning in large cities: A systematic global assessment. Environmental Science & Policy, 66, 375–382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2016.06.009

Berberian, A. G., Gonzalez, D. J., & Cushing, L. J. (2022). Racial disparities in climate change-related health effects in the United States. Current environmental health reports, 9(3), 451-464. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40572-022-00360-w

Godden, L., & Tehan, M. (2016). REDD+: climate justice and indigenous and local community rights in an era of climate disruption. Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law, 34(1), 95-108. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646811.2016.1121620

Hardoy, J., & Velásquez Barrero, L. S. (2014). Re-thinking “Biomanizales”: addressing climate change adaptation in Manizales, Colombia. Environment and Urbanization, 26(1), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247813518687

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2022). Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Summary for Policymakers]. Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/

Meerow, S., & Newell, J. P. (2016). Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why? Urban Geography, 39(8), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2016.1206395

Schlosberg, D., Collins, L. B., & Niemeyer, S. (2017). Adaptation policy and community discourse: risk, vulnerability, and just transformation. Environmental politics, 26(3), 413-437. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2017.1287628

Scott, M., Lennon, M., Tubridy, D., Marchman, P., Siders, A. R., Main, K. L., Herrmann, V., Butler, D., Frank, K. I., Bosomworth, K., Blanchi, R., & Johnson, C. (2020). Climate disruption and planning: Resistance or retreat? Planning Theory & Practice, 21(1), 125-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2020.1704130

United Nations Development Programme. (2023, June 30). Climate change is a matter of justice – here’s why. UNDP Climate Promise.  https://climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/climate-change-matter-justice-heres-why

Women and the Environment Organization. (2010). Second progress report. Women and the Environment Organization. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TfwZYDT__A5vIYGLxSaXDM42qa2vpBbi/view?usp=sharing