Climate ChallengesCities Worldwide Aren’t Adapting to Climate Change Quickly Enough
Climate change is magnifying threats such as flooding, wildfires, tropical storms and drought. cities are quickly becoming more vulnerable to extreme weather events and permanent shifts in their climate zones. The problem is that the pace of climate change is accelerating much more rapidly than urban areas are taking steps to adapt to it.
Climate change is magnifying threats such as flooding, wildfires, tropical storms and drought. In 2020 the U.S. experienced a record-breaking 22 weather and climate disasters that each caused at least US$1 billion in damage. So far in 2021, the count stands at 18.
I study urban issues and have analyzed cities’ relationship with nature for many years. As I see it, cities are quickly becoming more vulnerable to extreme weather events and permanent shifts in their climate zones.
I am concerned that the pace of climate change is accelerating much more rapidly than urban areas are taking steps to adapt to it. In 1950, only 30 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas; today that figure is 56 percent, and it is projected to rise to 68 percent by 2050. Failure to adapt urban areas to climate change will put millions of people at risk.
Extreme Weather and Long-Term Climate Zone Shifts
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows in its latest report, released in August 2021, global climate change is widespread, rapid and accelerating. For cities in temperate latitudes, this means more heat waves and shorter cold seasons. In subtropical and tropical latitudes, it means wetter rainy seasons and hotter dry seasons. Most coastal cities will be threatened by sea level rise.
Around the globe, cities will face a much higher probability of extreme weather events. Depending on their locations, these will include heavier snowfalls, more severe drought, water shortages, punishing heat waves, greater flooding, more wildfires, bigger storms and longer storm seasons. The heaviest costs will be borne by their most vulnerable residents: the old, the poor and others who lack wealth and political connections to protect themselves.
Extreme weather isn’t the only concern. A 2019 study of 520 cities around the world projected that even if nations limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial conditions, climate zones will shift hundreds of miles northward by 2050 worldwide. This would cause 77 percent of the cities in the study to experience a major change in their year-round climate regimes.
