All infrastructure projects need to be placed in particular locations, and host communities typically have local populations, economies, and ecosystems that will be affected. The literature is divided, with energy and economic scholars tending to emphasize local benefits while geographers, anthropologists, and environmental scholars tend to highlight local costs. This chapter examines how local communities in Brazil and South Africa responded to new wind and solar power installations, asking not just about their preferences but also how (and if) they were able to mobilize resources and respond. Environmental impact assessment and land-use policies set a broad framework for these questions. New research conducted for the book finds that communities resisted wind power plants in about a quarter of the 77 Brazilian cities that hosted them, most in Brazil’s poor Northeastern region, especially in an early generation of poorly chosen coastal sites. There was little community protest against solar power in Brazil. South Africa saw little community protest against wind or solar power installations, though national organization BirdLife South Africa did strongly influence siting decisions.

Climate change poses serious adaptation challenges for countries in Southeast Asia, including how climate change impacts will be managed under environmental and planning law frameworks. At the same time. in Southeast Asia, climate change litigation involving questions of adaptation planning is at a nascent stage. There is also little research and scholarship on climate change legal developments in this part of the world. This chapter aims to evaluate prospects for adaptation-focused climate change litigation in Southeast Asia. It considers three key Southeast Asian jurisdictions – the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore – which illustrate differing levels of receptivity to such cases given their existing legal frameworks and litigation cultures. With climate litigation in general at an early stage in these jurisdictions, this chapter attempts to draw lessons for further development of this body of case law from the more developed climate adaptation jurisprudence in neighbouring Australia. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the necessary preconditions for growth of climate adaptation litigation in the Southeast Asian region.