Climate change is profoundly impacting cities and their inhabitants, leading to increased infrastructure failure, food and resource shortages and death. Existing research has shown that vulnerable households are not only the most exposed to these effects, but also experience displacement when cities implement green, climate-adaptive interventions that change housing markets and their affordability. When more specifically considering housing in Europe, new funding programmes and directives related to the European Green Deal are starting to trigger unprecedented transformations that might further negatively impact vulnerable households, especially considering that buildings account for 40% of European energy consumption and are a key target for climate action. Yet we still don’t know enough about the specific interplay between climate adaptation and housing justice, and more research is necessary to understand how housing access can be ensured for all residents in green, climate adapted cities. Filling this gap is of crucial importance to enable a just transition towards meeting the EU’s 2050 carbon neutrality goal.
In this context, the CLIMATEJUSTHOME project sought to understand how the experience of vulnerable urban residents can help cities tackle climate change in a more just and equitable way. Research objectives focused on improving the understanding of the urban justice implications of EU climate policy and generating empirical and theoretical knowledge about vulnerable urban households’ experiences of housing and climate injustice through a case study of a neighbourhood undergoing large-scale housing renovation in Spain’s Green Leaf city Cornellà de Llobregat. Due to carrying out only one year of the MSCA Fellowship rather that two years, in 2024 and 2025 the outcomes of this research will be translated into theoretical and practical knowledge. The former will help improve understanding of these questions and inform future research, while the latter aims to inform policy-making and practice related to housing energy efficiency in cities across Catalonia, Spain and beyond, with the aim to help build more just, green housing and urban environments for all.
