Presentation short abstract

This paper examines how Bangkok’s heat governance shapes risks for informal workers. Using policy analysis and surveys with over 1,000 workers, it reveals how current adaptation strategies overlook livelihood realities and reinforce inequities.

Presentation long abstract

Heat stress is an escalating challenge in Bangkok, Thailand, with profound implications for economic productivity and public health (Arifwidodo et al. 2019; Rubinyi et al. 2025). Impacts are shaped by socioeconomic inequalities and the urban environment (Arifwidodo & Chandrasiri 2020), but few studies examine how risks vary across worker groups, particularly the 42% employed in the informal economy.

Since the 1990s, Bangkok’s pursuit of “global city” status has relied on private-sector-led real-estate projects (Endo 2022; Polakit & Boontharm 2008). Private investments increasingly feature in heat mitigation strategies, but access to cooling and green space remains deeply unequal (Rubinyi et al. 2025; Marks & Connell 2024). Key climate plans and adaptation agendas focus on broad technical measures and a few economic sectors, which risks reinforcing inequalities by overlooking urban informal livelihoods.

This paper uses mixed methods to examine Bangkok’s heat governance, analyzing the interplay of state and institutional responses and the limits of private adaptation for marginalized workers. It draws on policy analysis, key informant interviews and phone‑based surveys with over 1,000 informal workers —street vendors and home‑based workers as representative outdoor and indoor occupations— conducted in May 2025. Comparing formal adaptation frameworks with workers’ lived experiences reveals gaps in risk governance and highlights the need for livelihood‑sensitive heat adaptation that explicitly includes informality.

Adopting a political ecology perspective, the paper emphasizes that heat risks are unequally distributed and shaped by political and economic processes. It examines why dominant adaptation approaches often overlook or reproduce inequalities affecting the city’s informal workforce.