Our cities can thrive in the age of climate change – if we help them adapt
Cities all around the world are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but they are also hot-spots of transformative energy. We must help them use it.
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s our sea levels and global temperatures continue to rise, we must ask ourselves – how can we adapt to these new conditions and give people all over the world the opportunity for a better, more hopeful future?
That’s the question the Global Commission on Adaptation set out to answer in its flagship report, released just last month, Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience.
The report is designed to inspire action among decision-makers – heads of state, government officials, mayors, business executives, investors and community leaders – and sets out the steps we can take to begin creating a more resilient world.
But, importantly, it also puts forward a compelling economic case for acting now to adapt. That is because adaptation, done right, will lead to better growth and development even as it protects lives and livelihoods.
Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Commission on Adaptation, speaks at the 2019 C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen on 9 October.
Net benefits
Through our research, we discovered that the overall return on investments in improved resilience is very high, with benefit-cost ratios typically ranging from 2:1 to 10:1, and in some cases even higher.
And consider this: investing $1.8 trillion globally from now until 2030 could generate $7.1 trillion in total net benefits.
Following the release of the report, the Global Commission on Adaptation, led by Ban Ki-moon, the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, also launched what it’s calling a ‘Year of Action’.
Our ambition here is to maintain momentum – fully seize the moment – and encourage and inspire as many communities, businesses and governments as possible to take full advantage of the transformative opportunities that climate adaptation offers.
During our Year of Action, which culminates in our Climate Adaptation Action Summit in the Netherlands in October next year, we will be devoting our energies to a key set of Action Tracks.
These Action Tracks are designed to jump-start adaptation schemes around the world, mobilising politicians, technicians, innovators, financiers and academics to support and scale up existing initiatives, as well as help create new ones.
We will focus on the key areas of: food security; nature-based solutions; water; infrastructure; locally-led action; preventing disasters; finance and cities.
Let’s take a closer look at the last of these – cities.
Rising threats
Climate change is already bringing more damage, stress, and suffering to the world’s cities, which are home to more than half the global population.
These concentrated clusters of people and businesses are also extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Many, for example, are located in low-lying coastal areas – and their situation is worsening each year.
And so we witness storms and flooding in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Dongguan, and in New York and New Orleans in the US. We are also witnessing torrential rains and landslides in Durban, South Africa, and heatwaves across India and Europe
The threat of rising seas and ever-more powerful storm surges could force hundreds of millions of people from their coastal city homes – at a total cost to these areas of more than $1 trillion dollars a year by 2050.
The perils of climate change affect quality of life. They affect economic vibrancy. In turn, they affect a city’s ability to cope with poverty, homelessness and social inequality.
And once again – as so often happens – it will be those who have the least that suffer the most.
Rising seas and greater storm surges could force hundreds of millions of people from their homes in coastal cities, with a total cost to coastal urban areas of more than US$1 trillion each year by mid-century.
Transformative energy
We now have no choice but to innovate and adapt so our ever-growing urban areas can continue to thrive in our warming world.
But let’s focus on the positives: yes, many cities are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, yet these cities are also zones of potential opportunity and innovation. They are hot-spots of transformative energy.
And because of this, they are places of constant renewal and constant change, with action happening at every level, from grassroots community groups to city planning departments, all the way up to national agencies. They are ripe for adaptation.
If adaptation efforts are well-designed and make the best possible use of resources, they will not only reduce climate change risk while improving quality of life in our urban hubs, but they can also generate high economic returns.
To achieve any of this we must work together. We need to continue to gather climate-risk information – floodplain and topographic maps, weather information, satellite data and climate impact models. Not just for some cities, but for all cities.
With this information we can work better, smarter. And we can use it to bring together local governments and businesses to build a plan for investment, a plan for operations and a plan to reduce climate risks.
Solutions
Some cities around the world have responded to climate change by raising docks and wharfs or installing more powerful water pumps, by increasing tree cover to cool cities, and by nurturing wetlands and forests, which can temper the effects of flooding.
In China’s ‘sponge cities’ – such as Lingang and Wuhan – permeable pavements and urban gardens have been installed to increase rainwater filtration and reduce stormwater run-off.
Meanwhile, Chicago’s green rooftops help reduce heat in the summer, insulate against the bitter winter cold and reduce run-off during storms.
And in Germany, communities in Dresden are working together to build urban gardens to help increase water retention and biodiversity.
But climate risk particularly affects those people living in poverty: the estimated 880 million living in informal settlements without proper infrastructure or sanitation are particularly at risk from extreme heat, flooding or landslides.
What can be done for them? Thankfully, a great deal.
For example, when a typhoon hit the Philippines in 2009, 40,000 people were living in makeshift homes along the Manggahan Floodway. Unfortunately, many lives were lost and many homes were destroyed.
Since then, residents and city leaders have worked together to design climate-resilient homes made from resilient materials and with elevated water tanks. So far, 480 families have moved in.
By rethinking the way housing, sanitation and drainage are organised in these areas and by working with community leaders, conditions have improved, as have the health and productivity of the people living in them.
Planning and working together within urban communities offers major pay-offs in terms of avoiding future losses. Aside from damage avoidance, infrastructure maintenance costs are lower and buildings have a longer lifespan.
And above all – the moral imperative – the health and wellbeing of all residents can be improved.
Answer the call
In our coastal cities, the annual cost of global adaptation is a tenth of the cost of taking no action at all. And yet between 2010 and 2014, less than 5% of global climate-adaptation finance was spent on cities.
This is why I am calling on everyone to heed the title of our report and to answer the call for leadership on climate resilience.
I am calling on community leaders to come together, to work together and to take action. Take action to accelerate data and information gathering, action to make our cities green and water resilient. Action to adapt your cities, secure finance to invest in your infrastructure and do all that you can to protect your people.
The ideas presented in this article aim to inspire adaptation action – they are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Global Center on Adaptation.
