Why World's Fastest Growing Cities Face Greatest Climate Risk

Many of the largest and fastest growing cities are on coasts or rivers, especially in Asia. Which means they face the greatest climate risk, primarily from flooding. JL 

Feargus O'Sullivan reports in Bloomberg:

The effects of melting glaciers and thawing permafrost are now approaching irreversibility. Half the world is now living with annual periods of severe water scarcity and we can expect global increases in heat-related deaths. The world’s urban population is expected to increase by 2.5 billion people between now and 2050, with 90% of that growth taking place in Asia and Africa. As a result of this shift, the proportion of people living in urban areas highly exposed to climate change impacts will also increase greatly.

In the struggle to manage climate change, cities in the Global South will be the front line. So suggests a report Monday from the world’s top climate scientists, which strikes a note of warning that time is running out for decisive global action on the climate.

In an alarming call to action, the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that the effects of melting glaciers and thawing permafrost are now approaching irreversibility, that half the world is now living with annual periods of severe water scarcity, and that we can expect global increases in heat-related deaths without more efforts toward adaptation. In a world that continues to urbanize, cities in developing countries will feel the brunt of these drastic shifts most strongly.

At the same time, their future development along more sustainable paths could make a major contribution to mitigating climate change’s worst effects.

Read More: Global Warming Is Outrunning Efforts to Protect Human Life, Scientists Warn

Cities across the world are already showing vulnerabilities to climate change, the report notes, whether directly through heat waves or flooding, or indirectly through the exacerbating impact that extreme weather can have on other issues such as pollution. The pandemic has further exposed vulnerabilities even in the world’s wealthiest cities, highlighting systemic underinvestment in necessary infrastructure. But it is in socially and economically marginalized urban communities that the effects of climate change will be felt most keenly. It is also these communities that are poised to grow dramatically in the coming decades.

As the report points out, the world’s urban population is expected to increase by 2.5 billion people between now and 2050, with 90% of that growth taking place in Asia and Africa. As a result of this huge shift, the proportion of people living in urban areas highly exposed to climate change impacts will also increase greatly. Thanks in part to urbanization, an estimated 1 billion people living in low-lying cities and settlements will be at risk from coastal flooding events by 2050. Cities in the Global South may also prove especially vulnerable to such risks because their urban development is frequently informal, creating sprawling, unplanned urban areas that that suffer from a relative lack of adaptive capacity.

These cities nonetheless offer great opportunities for meaningful action. The process of urbanization provides the chance for a significant reset of planning, construction and the economy towards greater resilience and sustainability.

“Integrated development planning that connects innovation and investment in social, ecological and grey/physical infrastructures can significantly increase the adaptive capacity of urban settlements and cities,” says the report, which was assembled by teams of 270 researchers in 67 countries. “Transitioning cities to low carbon development and equitable resilience may lead to trade-offs with dominant models of economic growth based on housing and infrastructure investment.”

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This is, however, a “time-limited opportunity,” the report states — and the clock is running. While scores of cities have announced emissions goals and climate adaptation plans, only a few have actually been implemented, and they tend to focus too narrowly on risk reduction, such as improving disaster warning systems and erecting stronger flood control measures, rather than the broader goals of mitigation and sustainable development. Urban climate action has too often been slow and uneven, while a lack of agreement on metrics to measure impact and investment has reduced “the scope for sharing lessons and joined-up action.”

Read More: Five Key Takeaways From the New IPCC Climate Risk Report

Effective action will mean not just overcoming these hurdles, but also adopting an intersectional approach to climate action that engages with and protects those most vulnerable.

“Climate impacts are felt disproportionately in urban communities with the most economically and socially marginalized,” says the report. It recommends that cities and states give priority to investment in reducing climate risk for low-income and marginalized residents, making informal settlements a particular priority.