Climate Justice in Richmond, BC By: Joyce Palmer

HISTORY AND THEORY OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING, IN THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE + PLANNING AT UTSA

Critical Case Studies of a Present Plan

Photo Credit: City of Richmond, eugpng

QUESTIONS

The City of Richmond in British Columbia, Canada, is a medium-sized city with a population of about 210,000, and has recently completed an updated emissions plan called the Community Energy Emissions Plan 2050 (CEEP) (City of Richmond, 2022 September). Richmond has a diverse ethnic and racial makeup, and the CEEP acknowledges that not all groups of people experience the effects of climate change in the same way, with many experiencing greater difficulty transitioning to greener energy practices (City of Richmond, 2022). The CEEP highlights specific groups that the city should work to address to increase the likelihood of an equitable implementation of strategies: indigenous and First Nations communities, low-income households, and visible minorities, as well as newer residents/immigrants, women, youth, seniors, and disabled persons (City of Richmond, 2022).

With this, I want to examine whether and how the CEEP addresses climate justice – broadly, the understanding that the impacts of climate change affect groups of people differently, and often the greatest negative impacts are experienced by more marginalized groups – within its energy emissions plan.

• Do the recommended goals, strategies, and actions in the CEEP provide an equitable roadmap for all Richmond residents?

I think this is an important topic because, per Brooks, advocacy planning is an aspect of planning that allows for a marginalized or disenfranchised group to be heard and can help planners address that group’s specific needs (Brooks 2017). In the case of climate action that often affects marginalized groups more severely, the tools of advocacy planning can be especially necessary. Richmond houses many groups that are typically underrepresented in some way, yet often these groups have differing needs or areas of focus. Multiple viewpoints and perspectives can be correct at the same time, and these different groups may have different values to be addressed and incorporated into the CEEP (Davidoff, 2011). At the same time, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to address all groups’ needs simultaneously, as the nature of advocacy planning often focuses on supporting a specific underrepresented group, rather than all underrepresented groups (Brooks, 2017). In addition to balancing community goals, the CEEP must also mediate between community goals and politics. While ideally the goals of the community and political figures align, this is not always the case, and planners must work within the confines of their political structures, sometimes incrementally, to effect change (Brooks, 2002). In a city as diverse as Richmond, I am interested to explore if and how different, sometimes conflicting needs and values are addressed to produce justice through equitable actions in a plan that is designed to drastically impact emissions across all residents and industries.

METHODS

In considering climate justice in the CEEP, I reviewed the CEEP and its supporting documents, as well as news articles that may address the CEEP or its engagement with the public. Because underrepresented and marginalized groups are often the most affected by climate change – and have the most to gain from climate justice initiatives – my goal was to find evidence of justice- oriented goals and practices within the CEEP, and by extension in its creation. Historically, groups such as indigenous and First Nations communities have been ignored or actively suppressed by all levels of Canadian government, resulting in policies and plans that create or worsen the issues faced by these groups. Any new plan should not only take into account the needs of all residents today, but also work to address the historical and systemic practices that led to many of these problems.

Many earlier laws and practices based in racism or prejudice against low-income residents still have impacts today, similar to the exclusionary zoning and prejudiced planning practices historically used by government entities to segregate and marginalize low-income and minority groups in the US (Rothstein, 2018). In the case of climate, it is important to translate advocacy and experience into policy, as underrepresented and marginalized groups are often those most affected by climate change due to the historical disenfranchisement these groups have experienced.

Beyond addressing historical inequality, more inclusive planning also increases the field of knowledge available to address climate needs, creating a wider range of actions available to the City of Richmond for achieving its climate goals with the help of residents. As noted by the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, First Nations groups are more likely to be affected by climate change, but also have connections and knowledge of traditional lands that “are critical to achieving world targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions and developing effective climate adaptation strategies,” (BC Assembly of First Nations, 2022). A way to achieve climate justice and reap the benefits of community knowledge is through a more collaborative planning approach: creating and implementing the CEEP’s emission-reduction actions through dialogue and community involvement to create a plan that can then be adopted and translated into citywide initiatives and policies (Watson, 2014).

While the CEEP is not an implementation plan, it is an important first step towards achieving Richmond’s emissions reduction goals, because it creates an actionable set of goals and strategies. Beyond creating actions for residents and businesses, the City of Richmond must also create actions that will be taken by residents and businesses. As noted by Lieberknecht, it is important to communicate to residents how climate change and its impacts can affect them, and help residents understand how climate planning can benefit them in their daily lives, as this makes them more likely to support and implement climate policy (Lieberknecht, 2022). By involving all community members and community knowledge to create community buy-in, the City of Richmond can create an equity- and inclusion-focused CEEP that advances climate justice, especially for the residents most affected by it.

FINDINGS

Though I couldn’t find a lot of information about the CEEP or engagement with the CEEP in local news or on the city’s community website, the CEEP itself does outline actions to be taken to achieve emission reduction goals and highlights actions with particular potential to address equity issues. In acknowledging the need for equity and inclusivity in the plan, the CEEP provides a base document from which planners and historically underrepresented groups can draw to impact policy and planning processes to have a greater focus on advancing climate justice.

To examine how the CEEP offers a climate-justice-oriented approach to emission reduction goals, I looked at the language used in the plan. The CEEP outlines eight strategic directions to achieve its emissions reduction plan, offering several action items within each larger goal (City of Richmond, 2022). Because the CEEP is a roadmap, rather than an implementation plan, it does not offer detailed guidance on how actions will be achieved, instead outlining what actions need to be taken and potential tools and steps to achieve each action to meet overarching goals. This could include actions that acknowledge opportunities to correct historical and systemic issues, and actions that identify opportunities for community involvement and dialogue.

Looking at language: while the term “equity” appears in the CEEP 55 times, the word “justice” appears only once, in a description of the plan’s goal to highlight actions likely to improve “equity, justice, fairness and inclusion during implementation,” (City of Richmond, 2022).

Though justice is not explicitly discussed, the CEEP introduction highlights that the plan is designed with a focus on increased equity and inclusion, which will advance climate justice. To underscore this, some actions in the plan are marked with the phrase “Equity Opportunity” denoting actions with a high potential to increase equity and ensure that underrepresented groups reap the positive impacts of emission reduction actions (City of Richmond, 2022). In total, the plan implementation roadmap identifies thirty-two actions as “Equity Opportunities” out of a total of seventy-six actions. An example of this is the action to create a sustainable urban forest within Richmond, an action within the larger goal of “enhance green infrastructure”; identifying it as an Equity Opportunity alerts planners and those implementing the action that it has greater power to increase (or decrease, if done incorrectly), equitable outcomes for residents (City of Richmond, 2022). These Equity Opportunities are potential vehicles with which the City of Richmond can achieve greater climate justice, through creating a more equitable, inclusive future for all residents.

Considering Watson’s and Lieberknecht’s emphasis on communication and community involvement, I also looked for local news sources that covered the plan or the outreach process. However, I found little news coverage or engagement data available outside of the plan itself. In August 2021, a local paper, the Richmond News, announced a feedback request for the CEEP along with a brief summary of the plan goals, and included a link to the feedback page; the article was shared three times and had no comments (Clarke, 2021). The city’s engagement page, Let’s Talk Richmond, featured the feedback request and survey from late summer/early fall of 2021, but the survey results are not available on the public site (Let’s Talk Richmond, 2022).

Within the CEEP, community engagement and survey response numbers are included, as well as engagement methods used – such as digital ads, social media posts, free promotional materials, and electronic and in-person communications (City of Richmond, 2022). The CEEP highlights that 775 residents completed surveys, and over 1,000 residents were involved with in-person engagement; this includes stakeholder meetings, community workshops, and public meetings, as well as a number of outreach events targeted at youth and all residents (City of Richmond, 2022).

Overall, the CEEP creation process and its resulting goals, strategies, and actions offer Richmond a path towards a more inclusive, equitable approach to reducing climate emissions, outlining opportunities to achieve climate justice while taking steps to implement the plan’s various actions.

FUTURE SCENARIO

Albert and Eglantine stretch before their morning run. As children, they grew up near the industrial part of town. Their neighborhood had borne the brunt of the city’s heat, with its proximity to ever-present pavement, metal, and noise from planes and ships that characterized the area near the river and airport. Now, things were different. As they ran, Eglantine thought about her speech for tonight’s town hall, convened to introduce Richmond’s updated Community Energy and Emissions Plan 2150. The city made it clear that planning needed to encompass today’s needs and those of future generations – Albert and Eglantine were children when the plan was first adopted. That plan was for them, and its extension is for their grandchildren and their grandchildren. Using the past and what they have learned so far, residents attending the town hall are encouraged to contribute their thoughts on how Richmond can better prepare for the future. As they jog along the riverside trail, Eglantine thinks she will start her talk with how much things have already changed. Existing industrial buildings have been retrofitted with greener infrastructure, and many are repurposed to focus on more sustainable industries. The neighborhood has also changed – mixed uses are allowed throughout Richmond, and the dense mix of uses has allowed the city to maximize its return on developing complete streets and greening areas like Eglantine’s – where residents were historically most affected by climate warming. Eglantine yawns as she and Albert reach the destination of today’s run: a food forest at the edge of their childhood neighborhood, nestled among a larger stretch of trees in Richmond’s extensive urban forest. Albert had been skeptical about the food forest idea at first, but as he and Eglantine started attending planning meetings, he’d seen the possibilities. Now he openly admitted how much the project had changed his life – providing not only food, but also shade and a sense of community, as neighbors took it in turns to manage and harvest as needed. He was especially excited to announce the inaugural Richmond Food Forest Apple Festival at tonight’s meeting.

REFERENCES

BC Assembly of First Nations. (2022). Climate Emergency. British Columbia Assembly of First Nations. https://www.bcafn.ca/priority-areas/environment/climate-emergency

Brooks, M. P. (2017). Planning theory for practitioners. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351179454

City of Richmond. (2022, February 14). City of Richmond Community Energy and Emissions Plan 2050. City of Richmond.https://www.richmond.ca/ shared/assets/ceepreport61163.pdf

Clarke, K. (2021, August 17). Richmondites asked to give feedback on city’s energy and emissions plan. Richmond News. https://www.richmond-news.com/local-news/richmondites- asked-to-give-feedback-on-citys-energy-and-emissions-plan-4229092

Davidoff, P. (2011). Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning. In R. T. LeGates & F. Stout (Eds.), The City Reader (7th ed., pp. 435–445). Routledge.

Google Maps. ( n.d.). [ Map of Richmond and Surrounding Area]. Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.google.com/maps/@49.1936744,-123.0711138,11z.

Let’s Talk Richmond. (2022). Summer 2021-Community Energy and Emissions Plan 2050. Let’s Talk Richmond. https://www.letstalkrichmond.ca/ceep2050?utm_source=richmond %20news&utm_campaign=richmond%20news%3A%20outbound&utm_medium=referral

Lieberknecht, K. (2022). Community-Centered Climate Planning: Using Local Knowledge and Communication Frames to Catalyze Climate Planning in Texas. Journal of the American Planning Association, 88(1), 97–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2021.1896974

Rothstein, R. (2018). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. (First published as a Liveright paperback 2018). Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company.

Watson, V. (2014). Co-production and collaboration in planning – The difference. Planning Theory & Practice, 15(1), 62–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2013.866266