Just Systems or Justice in Systems? Exploring the Ethical Implications of Systemic Resilience in Local Climate Adaptation

Abstract

The concept of systemic resilience, as it is understood in the context of climate change adaptation addressing systemic risks and polycrisis, is an inherently normative notion that carries ethical weight. To account for these implications, systemic resilience needs to be supplemented with ethical reflections on a system’s function, why it should be made resilient, and who the resilience serves. Crucially, considerations surrounding various forms of justice, such as participatory, procedural, distributive, and historical, need to be accounted for when making decisions about a community’s resilience in the face of increasing climate hazards. Resilience in the context of systemic risks and climate adaptation currently does not account for its ethical implications. This investigation builds on complexity science research and specifically the expanded concept of systemic resilience. In this article, the concept of systemic resilience is applied to the local level, highlighting its ethical underpinnings in the process. Specifically, a case-study explores the application of the ethically informed version of systemic climate resilience, exploring how the Rhine-Erft catchment in Germany could be assessed on this basis.