Housing renovations in climate changed cities

Abstract

In the face of the climate-change as well as the recent energy crisis, carbon emission mitigation through housing renovations has transformed into key policy. Nonetheless, climate action for housing is prone to engage with rigid and deep-rooted housing policies and rigid institutional frameworks. Moreover, it further involves different forms of political agency, as represented by the variety of actors that constitute climate change governance. Simultaneously, housing policy is operated across different state scales and involves non-state actors, like the financial industry as highlighted in the literature of housing financialisation. However, very little is known about how climate-change policies challenge or influence housing, nor how housing supply is reshaped to accommodate climate-change targets. Additionally, little is known about the social and spatial trade-offs from climate-friendly housing. This contribution aims to bridge housing, climate and energy justice discourse by looking at the case of housing renovations in Athens. As housing in Greece lies -still- in the jurisdiction of the central state, this research interrogates the top-down policy capacity implementation for housing energy upgrades. It further interrogates the role of climate city networks as political agents with unique capacities to promote low carbon urban transitions, to question, who has -for the moment- access to the right for climate neutral housing