Abstract/Summary

To date, thermal comfort has been understood either as an individual (bodily) issue to be modified for those able to via consumption-side measures such as air conditioning, or as a technical question requiring adaptations pre- dominantly at the building scale. Contributing to literature at the interface of critical temperature, urban heat and climate justice studies and spatial planning, the paper frames thermal (dis)comfort as a critical urban gover- nance and social justice issue. The paper considers the potential of spatial planning systems to deliver more ther- mally-just built environments. Presenting an illustrative case study of the city of Mardin in south-eastern Türkiye, it explores the barriers to planning for thermally comfortable urban environments in the context of ex- treme heat. The results show that while the city's planning systems are procedurally robust, they fail to position thermal (dis)comfort as a socio-spatial justice issue requiring a scalar (e.g. city-level) response. Drawing on the case study, and the literature review, the paper presents a two-stage set of recommendations to embed thermal comfort justice within planning systems.