Precision justice in climate adaptation: Diagnosing asymmetric climate risk to target intersectional vulnerability – A Kenyan study with global implications

Climate adaptation promises resilience, yet persistent disparities suggest that current investments fail to identify who remains most vulnerable and why. We introduce precision justice - a diagnostic framework centered on asymmetric climate sensitivity that distinguishes households suffering steep yield losses under adverse conditions from those able to benefit under favorable conditions. Applying this framework to 569 maize-producing smallholder households in Western Kenya, we identify a pronounced climate asymmetry trap. Female-headed households in the Lower Midland Zone show the most adverse profile: they exhibit high downside sensitivity and limited relative upside potential, and 57% have yields below the 1.8 t/ha threshold, compared with 0% in more advantaged strata. Their asymmetry ratio – the balance of upside gain to downside loss - is roughly 2.2, less than half that of male-headed households in the same zone. A secondary Rasch-based adoption-propensity measure suggests that implementation capacity may condition some climate-yield relationships, but this evidence is modest and treated as exploratory. These findings challenge universal adaptation models and show how downside-risk diagnostics can inform more precise financial protection, while capacity diagnostics can support better-matched extension. By diagnosing asymmetric risk at the intersection of gender and agroecology, precision justice offers a scalable framework for aligning climate finance with local vulnerability across the Global South.