R$ 3.46 billion for Climate Justice in São Paulo: Designing an Adaptation Program in Vulnerable Areas with Fundurbs Resources

This article examines the intersection of climate planning and urban planning in the city of São Paulo, focusing on climate adaptation. Climate adaptation is the ability to respond to the effects of climate change by adjusting existing systems and infrastructure to reduce risks (IPCC, 2022). In the context of cities, adaptation clearly intersects with the need to overcome chronic climate problems.
infrastructure, drainage, occupation of risk areas, and extreme events in the form of floods and landslides.

In this sense, the guiding question for our analysis is how the Strategic Master Plan review process can help qualify adaptation strategies to address the harmful effects of climate change in São Paulo, which disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations, marked by intersectional spatial, racial, and class boundaries—in other words, Black, poor, and peripheral people (BAPTISTA; SANTOS, 2022). In this sense, thinking about cities from, for, and with these populations is the core of this proposal.

Based on this, a proposal will be formulated to create a “Municipal Program for Adaptation to Climate Change” aimed at the most vulnerable territories in the Municipality, based on the qualification of the urban policy and democratic management instruments provided for by the 2014 PDE and based on the perspective of integrated territorial planning.

Although tackling climate change is often presented as a challenge of planetary proportions, we assume that the actions of municipal governments on this issue are particularly valuable as they allow progress in overcoming democratic and
governance, due to the proximity between local authorities and the population (CURTIS, 2021).

In this sense, the Master Plan itself – as a paradigmatic instrument of urban planning – has the potential to contribute to climate action, both from a municipal governance perspective, by establishing guidelines for the organization of the territory and its management, and for the strengthening of democratic processes, due to the participatory rites involved in its formulation.

Thus, the context of reviewing the Strategic Master Plan of the Municipality of São Paulo appears, above all, as a strategic opportunity to renew discussions about the future that citizens want for their city, especially in challenges as urgent as climate adaptation.

Over the years, the Municipality of São Paulo has sought to establish regulatory strategies to address climate change, signaling the growing importance of this issue for urban planning. In 2009, the city established its Municipal Climate Change Policy through Law 14.933/2009. Furthermore, the 2014 PDE already included combating climate change as one of its "strategic objectives." However, despite these legislative advances, significant challenges remain for implementing the adaptation agenda in the city (DI GIULIO et al, 2017).

Since the formulation of the PDE, completed in 2014, we have seen important advances in climate governance, especially through the adoption of the Paris Agreement, signed by countries in 2015. This Agreement not only established a new strategy for tackling the climate crisis, reinforcing the objective of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C, but explicitly highlighted the importance of including subnational entities in this global effort, especially cities (MACEDO; SETZER; REI, 2016; LIN, 2018).

Mobilized by global climate governance efforts, the municipal government itself promoted the development of São Paulo's climate action plan—PlanClima SP (SÃO PAULO, 2021)—with support from the transnational C40 network. However, it is clear that a complementary planning effort is needed to outline concrete strategies for implementing the climate guidelines adopted by the municipal government.

PlanClima SP lacks specific targets, indicators, territorialization of measures, and budgeting, indicating a disconnect between climate planning and urban policy instruments. In particular, the content focused on adaptation is generic and needs to be detailed in concrete action strategies specifically targeted at the most vulnerable areas.

This issue is highlighted by the fact that the PlanClima Monitoring Report indicates a lack of cross-cutting engagement between departments involved in climate and adaptation issues, such as the urban development and environment departments (SÃO PAULO, 2022).

Therefore, the revision of the PDE is positioned as an opportunity to improve existing urban planning regulations and instruments to more effectively address climate adaptation objectives. In fact, this need to update urban planning from a climate perspective is explicitly recognized by the Urban Planning Coordination Office of the Municipal Secretariat of Urbanism and Licensing (SMUL):