The distributive politics of climate adaptation: reforming flood risk management in England.

Abstract

Speakers: Francesca Pia Vantaggiato, James Porter Climate politics is distributive. While this fact is now widely recognised for climate mitigation, the empirical literature on the distributive consequences of climate adaptation remains scant. Increasingly, policymakers realise that adaptation must not only provide relief in acute emergencies (eg disasters) but also address chronic disruptions (eg frequent nuisance flooding) and cater to communities of different types (urban and rural). Yet preventative action often reveals a mismatch between the scale of the assets to be protected and the costs involved. How do you allocate adaptation funding when costs and benefits do not align? And what are the distributive implications of these decisions? This seminar investigates these questions through the empirical case of Partnership Funding (PF), a reform of flood risk management (FRM) funding implemented in England in 2011 to encourage local (private and public) contributions for FRM projects that do not meet the cost–benefit criteria for full government funding. We combine analysis of policy documents with panel data analysis of 1,196 FRM schemes approved between 2012 and 2022, together with spatial risk data. We find that governments’ cost–benefit criteria benefit high-density areas (cities), while PF benefits sparser rural areas (countryside). Crucially, each approach rewards different kinds of people and voters. Traditional cost–benefit analysis benefits poorer, denser constituencies with more homes at risk, while PF benefits wealthier, sparser constituencies with fewer homes at risk and more Conservative voters.