Climate Adaptation for Favelas and COP 30: Opportunities and Challenges

The event “Climate Adaptation for Favelas and COP 30: Opportunities and Challenges” addresses fundamental issues for building a just climate adaptation. It will address environmental racism and its current impacts, demonstrating how adapting peripheral territories is an antiracist action that must be central in tackling climate change. It is understood that, in striving to make cities more just, it is essential to focus on peripheral territories in order to reduce infrastructure deficits, promote quality of life, create jobs, and foster cultural and leisure experiences. Thus, the urban upgrading of favelas represents an essential step in repairing historical inequalities, ensuring that vulnerable populations— especially women heads of household and the Black population—can fully exercise their right to the city and to adequate housing. Moreover, it also contributes to building a more sustainable city: a polycentric city that is less burdensome for all. The discussion converges with the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) by linking interventions in these territories to climate justice. If at the global scale the debate focuses on financing climate adaptation by the main historical emitters, at the scale of the city—or even of the watershed—it is the most vulnerable people who are demanding concrete solutions for the reconstruction and adaptation of their territories in the face of extreme climate events.