Exploring the Food-Climate Nexus through a Justice Lens: Insights from Urban Experimentations

Abstract

Several cities are adopting re-localized food systems as a vehicle to achieve climate mitigation and adaptation objectives, implementing initiatives like productive nature-based solutions, plant-based food procurement, sustainable food environments, net-zero food waste strategies, and more (IPES Food, 2023). However, despite the potential of these urban experimentations to bridge food and climate sustainability, the urban sustainability literature has largely overlooked the food-climate nexus as a critical arena for achieving place-based sustainability, and for addressing socio-ecological justice. Highlighting this gap, this reflective paper examines how cities are experimenting with a new socio-ecological agenda at the cross-roads between food and climate, positioning themselves as potential agents of transformative change within this nexus. Through theoretical discussions and empirical vignettes, the paper particularly highlights key tensions in combining diverse dimensions of justice through the food-climate nexus.