Community-led initiatives for climate adaptation and mitigation

Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences (2019)

In Te Awa Kairangi – Lower Hutt, Wellington – the community initiative Common Unity Project Aotearoa (CUPA) is fostering everyday practices of adaptation and mitigation amongst people who have traditionally had limited participation in more formal planning processes.

We use the example of CUPA to demonstrate the significance of local community-led development initiatives for adapting to a changing climate.

We argue that local government engagement with people around climate change cannot be separated from broader community development and well-being initiatives, and needs to be understood as longer term processes, rather than one-off project consultations.