Data Practices and Double-Binds of Toronto’s Climate Governance

Contemporary urban climate adaptation and mitigation strategies both draw upon and produce diverse forms of data. As the tenets of data-driven governance are increasingly integrated into city governments’ climate policy, careful attention to this intersection is necessary to evaluate how to best leverage data as part of municipal climate action. This project applies a practice-based approach to research, employing a combination of document analysis and semi-structured interviews to identify a set of climate data practices that offer a rich understanding of the role of data in climate politics in the City of Toronto. Together, the practices described in this paper illuminate a set of double-binds created through the pursuit of data-driven climate governance. To help navigate these contradictions we draw on research in HCI, STS, environmental justice, anthropology and urban planning to propose alternative approaches to guide future design and research.