Climate-smart cities

WE must recognise the importance of adapting cities to climate change and develop a roadmap to achieve it. The world is rapidly urbanising because of the growing size and density of the urban population. Estimates show that some 4.4 billion people live in cities and this number is expected to double by 2050 when seven out of 10 people reside in cities. The massive growth in urban population presents innumerable socioeconomic and environmental challenges, including the provision and maintenance of essential services — health, water supply, housing and public transport — as well as job creation.
Since cities in low-income countries already face serious socioeconomic difficulties, climate change acts as an intensifier; it amplifies existing challenges. Thus, climate change unveils additional risks in terms of direct and indirect impacts, including extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, storms, coastal inundation and vector-borne and waterborne diseases. Extreme weather events often disrupt economic activity and basic services, which disrupts households, businesses and communities. They hamper poverty eradication and social mobility and widen socioeconomic disparities. So, the cost of climate change is twofold for cities: socioeconomic regression and damaged essential services, which significantly burdens the national exchequer.
The urban poor residing in informal settlements with limited access to resources, such as water, energy and proper shelter, are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their precarious living conditions. Hence, enabling cities to adapt to climate change is critical to shielding their socioeconomic progress and to prevent losses to essential services. This requires an inclusive approach involving resources, manpower, strong coordination and effective collaboration among stakeholders, especially residents, local governments and businesses.
Furthermore, the projects conceived for climate change-resilient cities must be scalable and replicable with tangible impacts. This can be achieved by designing a comprehensive package of interventions and a concrete investment plan to initiate acclimatisation. Developing and deploying appropriate tools is critical to assessing the current situation and simulate future scenarios of cities’ resilience and adaptive capacity. For example, a rapid assessment of a city’s exposure to climate risk and vulnerability, its current level of preparedness and gaps is imperative to grasp the context and nature of risk and vulnerability for climate-informed strategic action and a project pipeline, whereby adaptation measures are aligned with the goals of urban development. A climate-informed, robust and transformational approach will also support resource mobilisation for the implementation of interventions.
Low-cost and resource-efficient adaptation interventions are most effective in resource-constrained cities in low-income countries. For example, rainwater harvesting and water treatment systems, natural flood management, urban greenery and building insulation are some low-cost and efficient adaptation strategies for urban areas. Rainwater harvesting and water treatment systems facilitate water storage and conservation, reduce flooding, improve water supply and recharge underground aquifers, mitigating soil erosion and downstream silt.
Natural flood management entails strategically placed natural wetlands, ponds, floodplains and wet woodlands to slow the flow of water and protect cities from flooding. Simi­larly, urban greenery creates shady spaces, reducing the urban heat island effect and energy consumption, and protects people from heatwaves. Mean­while, building insulation provides thermal resistance, minimises heat transfer and energy usage. Implementation of low-cost adaptation interventions can decrease household and business exposure to flooding, ameliorate productivity losses caused by rising temperatures and heatwaves, and shelter marginalised populations, the elderly, children and women.
While cities consume substantial amounts of natural resources and cause carbon emissions, they are also hubs of innovation, which assists socioeconomic and technological progress for prosperity and human well-being. This makes cities’ resilience to climate change and adaptive capacity critical to lasting development. Thus, cities, especially in the Global South, must develop a comprehensive adaptation plan to address their unique climate vulnerabilities, with the involvement of all stakeholders to foster a culture of cooperation essential for inclusive urban planning and development.
The writer has a PhD in economics from Durham University, UK. He specialises in environmental economics.
Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2024