Climate Change and Cities

Abstract

Climate change is defined in Article 1 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as “a change of climate attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.” Since the global scenarios for climate change during the current century indicate that, in most locations, warming will increase, precipitation will decrease and extreme events will be more likely, climate change must be considered one of the leading urban challenges. Processes of mitigation of and adaptation to these changes are now essential components of contemporary urban policy and planning, as efforts are made to reduce mortality, morbidity, and loss of assets, and consequently to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability. However, for many years international climate change analysis was weak at identifying the specific local generation of the greenhouse gases involved and the geographies of impacts. It is only over the past decade that the emphasis on the role of urban areas in climate change has strengthened considerably in the academic literature and in the policy realm. Most important, however, is that these concerns are now being translated into specific urban climate change plans.