Adapting Cities to Climate Change: Understanding and Addressing the Development Challenges

The contents of this book will be familiar to regular readers of Environment and Urbanization because it brings together 15 papers on adaptation and cities published in the journal between 2007 and 2009 (although with updating by some authors). To these 15 papers have been added a long introductory chapter setting the context and discussing the main possibilities and constraints for adaptation and a conclusions chapter. After the Introduction, the section on Risk and Vulnerability for Cities has a chapter on Assessing the Risks of Climate Change and Human Settlements in Low Elevation Coastal Zones, followed by papers that consider the vulnerabilities of the inhabitants, buildings and infrastructure in Mombasa, Dhaka and Cotonou. This is followed by chapters on: the vulnerability of global cities to climate hazards; climate change and health in Asian cities; the impacts on urban children and the implications for adaptation; climate change and flooding in African cities; and urban poverty and vulnerability in Latin America.

The next section comprises three case studies: one on plans and programmes being developed and implemented for adaptation in Durban; one on the development of a Municipal Adaptation Plan for Cape Town; and one on adaptations that will be needed in water management for urban resilience. The final section starts with a paper on an adaptation and mitigation agenda for Indian cities, followed by a paper on international funding to support urban adaptation to climate change. The book ends with a conclusions chapter that emphasizes the importance of rooting adaptation in local development. It notes the emphasis being given internationally to setting up adaptation funds but not to understanding local constraints on adaptation. It suggests that unless there is a clear understanding of what is needed to support action within each urban centre that delivers local adaptation+development, that addresses the needs and priorities of low-income groups and other groups at high risk and that makes maximum use of local knowledge, resources and capacities, international frameworks and funds will not be effective. “It would be sad indeed if the international funding architecture for climate change reproduced the inadequacies of so much funding for development – the inability to structure the funding and other aspects of support to serve these kinds of context-specific, pro-poor local processes”