UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Climate adaptation justice as lived experience: insights from Aotearoa New Zealand

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103134

Authors

Meg Parsons · Grace May · Bethany Waller · Leane Makey · Iresh Jayawardena · Karen Fisher · Cilla Brown

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.932961+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:13:38.730988+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

University of Auckland · University of Bath

Reported affiliation countries

GB · NZ

Documentary abstract — original language

Climate adaptation raises profound questions of fairness: Who bears the greatest risks and costs, and who decides how to respond? This study explores how communities in Aotearoa New Zealand perceive “just” climate adaptation, grounding climate justice in lived experience. We draw on 64 in-depth interviews with people who have endured floods, storms, or droughts, alongside an analysis of public submissions to national adaptation policy processes. The findings reveal that climate adaptation is widely viewed as a deeply relational process connecting people, place, and more-than-human beings. Abstract justice principles – distributive, procedural, recognitional, intergenerational, corrective, epistemic, and multispecies justice – emerge as interdependent in participants’ accounts of fair adaptation. Communities actively audit adaptation fairness through expectations of collaboration, mutual care, and government accountability. Notably, Indigenous Māori perspectives (honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi partnership obligations) and the rights of ecosystems (legal personhood for rivers and forests) are seen as integral to just outcomes. These insights challenge universal notions of climate justice by demonstrating that what counts as “just adaptation” is context-specific and anchored in relationships. We propose a relational framework for just adaptation that bridges theory and practice, concluding that equitable climate resilience hinges on transforming the social and ecological relationships that underlie vulnerability. Our study underscores that climate justice is not a peripheral ideal, but a necessary condition for effective adaptation policy and action.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7128771194

DOI

10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103134

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources

NZ

Natural entities mentioned

River · Forest · Ecosystem

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103134
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7128771194

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

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• openalex:w2532303248 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.