Dr. Liv Yoon awarded New Frontiers in Research Fund
By Paula Sabti
June 3, 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Liv Yoon, recipient of the New Frontiers in Research Fund: 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation
Dr. Liv Yoon and her team have been awarded the New Frontiers in Research Fund: 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation for the project, “Addressing Intersecting Crises: Climate, Housing, and Compounding Health Vulnerabilities for Senior Tenants,” where she serves as co-principal investigator.
Dr. Yoon’s research focuses on understanding and addressing the inequitable impacts of climate change-induced extreme events, such as heatwaves and wildfires, on indoor environments, particularly for senior, low-income, disabled, and racialized tenants in coastal cities. The goal is to enhance livability and health without displacing or disempowering vulnerable populations.
In cities around the world, the uneven impacts of climate change-induced extreme events such as heatwaves and wildfires are acutely felt indoors. Research on indoor environmental quality is emerging but often overlooks the social, political, and legal determinants of the built environment and health. An important co-determinant of health is housing. In many cities, housing is increasingly unaffordable and unfit for a changing climate. Tenants are left sacrificing safety for affordability because the buildings least prepared for climate change are often the most affordable. Tenants have little control over their units and cannot easily access adaptation measures. Senior tenants who are low-income, disabled, and/or racialized are particularly vulnerable – compounding their compromised physiological response to environmental threats. Governments have introduced programs to increase access to cooling (e.g., retrofits, free air conditioners). But if not accompanied by proper tenant protections, these initiatives could lead to displacement or rent hikes, meaning that adaptation and mitigation efforts could create unintended negative and inequitable outcomes for health and living standards.
We strategically combine the insights of environmental health and climate justice to study the indoor environments of senior tenants’ homes and foster equitable climate action. This requires interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral research to measure and create livable thresholds, prototype justice-based interventions, monitor implications of new climate policies on housing, and support community-based climate resilience measures. In Barcelona, New York City, and Vancouver – three major coastal urban centres facing the intersecting crises of climate and housing – we will pursue four initiatives:
- measure indoor environmental quality and its impact on health
- implement and evaluate in-building communal ‘climate safe’ rooms
- monitor the unintended outcomes of climate adaptation and mitigation policies on tenancy
- identify mechanisms that may lead to climate-related rent increases or displacement
Together, these initiatives provide environmental, health, and social data to 1) inform public discourse that propels adaptation and mitigation efforts without displacing or disempowering senior tenants, and 2) safeguard the right to secure, high-quality housing in the context of climate change especially for those facing environmental and social injustices.
Learn more about all of UBC’s NFRF recipients, partners and collaborators by reading the Office of the Vice-President Research + Innovation’s announcement.
The New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) supports world-leading interdisciplinary, international, high-risk / high-reward, transformative and rapid-response Canadian-led research. The 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation unites international research funders to harness interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral global expertise to address the needs of those most impacted by climate change, including communities in low- and middle-income countries, Indigenous territories, and groups vulnerable due to their geographic, social, or economic conditions.
