CLIMATE FUTURES LAB

Climate change adaptation projects seek to protect frontline communities against escalating changes both during the project and into the uncertain future. But scholars and practitioners know very little about what happens after such projects end. This unexamined legacy allows projects that fail, deepen inequality, and compound vulnerability to be replicated and scaled up globally, with potentially devastating impacts for frontline communities. This research examines how a project focused on climate change impacts in the Ecuadorian water sector (PACC) continues to shape local livelihoods and national adaptation governance 5 years after project closure. By looking at how adaptation projects endure, to what ends, and for whom, we can understand the possibilities and limitations of adaptation for building climate justice.

Over the past decade, hundreds of renewable energy projects - including utility-scale solar, geothermal, and pumped-storage hydropower plants - have been proposed across the arid Great Basin in the Western United States, alongside a surge in lithium and other critical mineral extraction. These developments are unfolding in a region shaped by longstanding struggles over water scarcity and environmental injustice. With funding from the Sloan Foundation, my co-PI Dr. Sophia Borgias (CU Boulder) and I are leading a community-based research project through which we are building a map of current and proposed energy and critical mineral projects in the Great Basin and conducting an extensive water right analysis of water rights transfers and interviews related to energy transition development in case study hydrographic basins.

How can the great imperatives of decarbonization and adaptation be more productively combined to deliver holistic climate action at the needed speed and scale? How can conjoined green investments to transform the built environment tackle climate vulnerabilities exacerbated by racial inequality and enduring colonialism? This project is a partnership between Climate Futures Lab and Dr. Daniel Aldana Cohen’s Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative. Together, we are examining the varied conceptualizations that have animated the interconnections of climate change adaptation and decarbonization.