Speaker
Description
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Sixth Assessment Report, published in August 2021, highlights that climate change is “widespread, rapid, and intensifying,” with severe impacts on the built environment which is increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events.
In recent years, climate action has gained increasing recognition on legislative multiple levels: globally, through various countries’ commitments as outlined in the UN's Agenda for Sustainable Development; at the European level, with initiatives like the EU Mission: Adaptation to Climate Change; and locally, as evidenced by the EU’s Urban Agenda, which seeks to enhance the urban dimension within EU policy. On March 12, 2024, the European Commission released Managing Climate Risks, highlighting the urgent need for rapid development and implementation of effective solutions in response to the European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) Report No. 1/2024.
The increasing vulnerability of urban areas to extreme climate events has led to the emergence of bottom-up adaptation practices, emphasising the role of public spaces in the city’s adaptation strategy. Nevertheless, legal texts seldom explicitly recognize public spaces or urban settlements as distinct legal entities (Layard, 2020), highlighting a gap in the legislative framework.
This article aims to present the research conducted thus far, offering a comprehensive theoretical and critical discussion of the current state of the art at the European level. Additionally, the article provides a detailed comparative analysis of legislation from various member states, highlighting similarities, differences, and potential gaps in their legal frameworks concerning public space governance.
The article builds upon previous research, which remains in its early exploratory stage, which aims to explore and critically evaluate how, in decision-making instruments, to assign a legal status to public spaces.
The central research question is: What role does public space play within the European legislative framework? The hypothesis suggests that codifying the characteristics of public space could enable more effective legislative intervention. This becomes particularly relevant when addressing the mismanagement of post-disaster interventions driven by climate change, facilitating improved adaptation and maintenance processes for vulnerable urban areas.
Through the analysis of scientific literature and the state of the art, it was observed that in both national and international European legislative plans and programs, public space is never directly addressed as a subject of legal texts. The absence of a unified interpretation regarding the physical, social, and political characteristics of public space as a legal entity in legislative plans and programs contributes to Europe's fragmented and evolving legislative panorama. The research's primary objective, addressing policy gaps in urban adaptation planning, directly supports Objective 13.2, which calls for integrating climate change measures into national policies and strategies.
In conclusion, the present article highlights the need for legal recognition of public spaces within European legislation to support effective urban adaptation strategies. Addressing this gap can enhance resilience to climate challenges and guide future policy developments for sustainable urban governance.
References
European Commission, 2024. EU mission: Adaptation to climate change. [online] Available at: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/eu-missions-horizon-europe/adaptation-climate-change_en [Accessed 14 January 2025].
European Environment Agency, 2024. European climate risk assessment (EUCRA); EEA report no 1/2024. [online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.2800/204249 [Accessed 14 January 2025].
IPCC, 2021. Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. (eds.) Cambridge University Press. [online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896 [Accessed 14 January 2025].
Layard, A., 2020. Researching Urban Law. German Law Journal, 21(7), pp. 1446–1463. doi:10.1017/glj.2020.85.
United Nations, 2015. Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. [online] Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda [Accessed 14 January 2025].
| Keywords | European Legislation; Legal Framework; Public Space; Urban Adaptation; Climate Change |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
