Climate Change and Czech cities: Searching for Responses

he book introduces Czech readers to a topic that connects the study of cities and their governance with questions concerning how society responds to the challenge of global climate change. From the perspective of interdisciplinary urban studies and urban sociology, it examines the responses to climate change that are emerging at the city level both internationally and in the Czech Republic. It provides a concise overview of how cities and climate change have been discussed in international urban studies and of the findings produced by this research elsewhere in the world over the past twenty years.

At the same time, the book proposes a new definition of the concept of “urban responses to climate change”. It then uses this concept to describe and explain the responses to the problem of climate change that emerged in Czech cities between 2017 and 2019, when qualitative research was conducted by a team from the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

The book thus also presents the findings of a study carried out in five Czech cities, based primarily on in-depth interviews and group discussions with experts, representatives of local government, people from the non-profit sector and social movements, and residents of the selected cities. Readers will learn whether and how urban responses to climate change in Czechia during this period differed from those in cities elsewhere in the world; how climate change was communicated in the Czech context at the time; what complications accompany efforts to respond to the problem of climate change; and whether explicitly naming climate change is always a prerequisite for people to respond to it or adapt to its local impacts, such as drought.

Finally, the book introduces the term “inconspicuous responses to climate change” and highlights the benefits of a qualitative approach to research on cities and climate change. Such an approach is able to include a wide range of actors and, alongside official responses, also examines the “micro-practices” of households and individual urban residents. In this way, it offers a deeper understanding of what is actually happening in cities in response to climate change.

The book can be purchased from the Karolinum Press website.