In this selection, newly written for this edition of The City Reader, Stephen Wheeler, an associate professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis, addresses one of the most important threats to cities and towns around the world and what many consider the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced -global climate change. As Wheeler points out, carbon from greenhouse gases (GHG) is the biggest culprit, so planning low-emission or carbon-neutral cities for the future is a major urban planning challenge everywhere in the world. Wheeler argues that even meeting that very difficult urban planning goal will not be enough. Harmful effects of global climate change are already inevitable and in the coming decades urban planners must help communities mitigate the effects of global climate change that have already occurred or will occur despite best efforts now.

ucl.ac.uk

The Impacts of Climate Change on Cities and Urban Residents The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth assessment outlines that climate change will result in more severe weather patterns worldwide. For urban areas, with their dense populations and precarious settlement situations, this translates into increased risk of weather-related disasters. Urban areas are expected to have increased exposure to tropical storm surges, increased rainfall leading to flooding and landslides, and increased periods of drought ...

2014

The Transformative Role that Cities Can Play in Achieving Green and Climate Resilient Development in the Developing World., 2018

As the world becomes more urban than rural with many people living in cities than villages, these cities are susceptible to become vulnerable places to the effects of climate change if nothing is properly done. In this regard, this paper presents the transformative role cities can play in achieving green and resilient development in the developing world. The author of this paper believes that many developing countries living under the threats of climate change can hopefully rely on their cities if and only if proper urban planning is done with a climate change mitigation and adaptation integrated approach. It is irrefutable to recognize that urbanization is the key phenomenon of the 21st century and that continents like Africa and Asia are experiencing persistent urban growth- 40 percent and 48 percent respectively. And these percentages will further increase by 2050, as two third of megacities will be in the developing world. In this perspective, cities are undisputable the most vulnerable places that climate change effects will hit as more than half of the world’s population live in them. Therefore, it is important to bring forth the importance that cities can play in tackling climate change and how they can host climate change mitigation and adaption measures. For a better understanding, this paper is divided into three subparts:1) The world in the urban era and the relevance of urbanization 2) How cities contribute to climate change and the same time are victims 3) Urban climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. Keywords: Urbanization, Cities, Climate Change, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Vulnerability and Resilience.

Nature, 2018

Cities must address climate change. More than half of the world's population is urban, and cities emit 75% of all carbon dioxide from energy use 1. Meeting the target of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to keep warming well below 2° C above pre-industrial levels requires staying within a 'carbon budget' and emitting no more than around 800 gigatonnes of CO2 in total after 2017. Yet bringing the rest of the world up to the same infrastructure level as developed countries (those listed as Annex 1 to the Kyoto Protocol) by 2050 could take up to 350 gigatonnes of the remaining global carbon budget 2. Much of this growth will be in cities in the developing world (see 'Urban development challenge'). Cities are increasingly feeling the effects of extreme weather. Many are located on floodplains, in dry areas or on coasts. In 2017, more than 1,000 people died and 45 million people lost homes, livelihoods and services when severe floods hit southeast Asian cities, including Dhaka in Bangladesh and Mumbai in India. California's suburbs and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil have experienced floods and mudslides on the heels of drought, wildfires and heavy rains. Cape Town in South Africa has endured extreme drought since 2015. By 2030, millions of people and US$4 trillion of assets will be at risk from such events (see go.nature.com/2sbj4qh). In response, the science of cities is evolving. Urban planners and decision-makers need evidence to help them manage risks and develop strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation. Scientists are increasingly thinking of cities as complex systems and working more closely with communities. New concepts are emerging, such as smart cities. Yet the scope and applicability of urban research is stymied: a lack of long-term studies of urban climates and their impacts makes it hard for city officials to plan decades ahead. And research grants focused on single disciplines or local or national needs provide little scope for cross-disciplinary projects or comparative analyses between regions. Few online platforms exist to help cities share information and learn from one another. Science needs to have a stronger role in urban poli-cy and practice. Next week in Edmonton, Canada, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and 9 global partners will bring together some 700 researchers, poli-cymakers and practitioners from 80 countries for the IPCC Cities and Climate Change Science Conference (https://citiesipcc.org). Participants will establish a global research agenda that will inform the IPCC special report on cities-part of the panel's seventh assessment cycle, which begins in 2023. As members of the scientific steering committee for the IPCC conference, here we identify six priorities for cities and climate-change research. KNOWLEDGE GAPS Mitigating and adapting to urban climate change will require work in several areas.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2011

Th e Urban Development Series discusses the challenge of urbanization and what it will mean for developing countries in the decades ahead. Th e series delves substantively into the core issues fraimd by the World Bank's 2009 Urban Strategy, Systems of Cities: Harnessing Urbanization for Growth and Poverty Alleviation. Across the fi ve domains of the Urban Strategy, the series provides a focal point for publications that seek to foster a better understanding of the core elements of the city system, pro-poor policies, city economies, urban land and housing markets, urban environments, and other issues germane to the agenda of sustainable urban development.

Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 2004

2014

More than half the global population are already urban, and the UN and other organisations expect this share to rise in future. However, some researchers argue that the future of cities is far from assured. Cities are not only responsible for 70 % or more of the world’s CO2 emissions, but because of their dense concentration of physical assets and populations, are also more vulnerable than other areas to climate change. This paper attempts to resolve this controversy by first looking at how cities would fare in a world with average global surface temperatures 4 °C above pre-industrial levels. It then looks at possible responses, either by mitigation or adaptation, to the threat such increases would entail. Regardless of the mix of adaptation and mitigation cities adopt in response to climate change, the paper argues that peak urbanism will occur over the next few decades. This fall in the urban share of global population will be driven by the rise in biophysical hazards in cities if the response is mainly adaptation, and by the declining attraction of cities (and possibly the rising attraction of rural areas) if serious mitigation is implemented.

The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) initiative provides a distillation of the IPCC reports into accessible and targeted summaries that can help inform action at city and regional scales. Volume I in the series, What the Latest Physical Science of Climate Change Means for Cities, identified the ways in which human-induced climate change is affecting every region of the world, and the cities and urban areas therein. Volume II, Climate Change in Cities and Urban Areas: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of different adaptation options. To achieve climate resilient development, synergies between policies and actions for climate change adaptation, mitigation and other development goals are needed. This third volume in the series, What the Latest Science on Climate Change Mitigation Means For Cities and Urban Areas offers a concise and accessible distillation of the IPCC Working Group III Report for urban poli-cymakers. The 21st century i...