The World’s Fastest-Growing Cities Are Facing the Most Climate Risk
A new UN report warns that rapid urbanization in Asia and Africa could expose billions of people to the impacts of global warming. But urban growth presents opportunities as well as threats.
Floods along the Ciliwung River in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2020 underscore that city’s vulnerability to climate change. The risks of global warming-related disasters are increasingly focused on cities in the Global South, says a new IPCC report.
Photographer: Dimas Ardian/BloombergIn 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.