Effects of Climate Change on Cities

Name:
Instructor:
Course:
Date:
Effects of Climate Change on Cities
Aspects of climate change pose serious detrimental challenges for cities in modern-day world. The whole idea involves increment of vulnerabilities and hazards that stand to get in the way of socio-economic development. It is important to note that urban settlements are home to more than half of the world's population and the increasing rural-urban migration enhances the effects of climate change on cities (De Sherbinin et al. 42). These include serious health challenges, like increased heat waves that threaten the wellbeing of the young, aged or infirm in these societies. Policy makers and international organizations and conventions have conducted a good number of studies on the extent of climate change on urban societies that have identified alarming trends that have initiated dabates. Additionally, a number of measures have been devised to curb the topic, which will be further discussed in this paper. Even so, it is important to indicate that specific measures vary from nation to nation and the specific challenges facing different communities in terms of economic and wealth levels as well as population indices (Adger et al. 15).
Today, climate change is recognized as a major and pressing global issue affecting development in urban centers of the world as agreed upon by different governing systems, especially attributes of global warming. The most widely accepted definition of climate change involves the effects of greenhouse gases emissions that include but are not limited to carbon dioxide and methane gases (Campbell, 110). All the same, aside from naturally occurring gases, human action remains a key contributing factor if not determinant of the harsh impacts of climate change, especially in terms of energy planning, management and consumption. The overall increases in temperatures bring about extinction of some vital vegetation especially in forest regions and hence a decrease in rainfall resulting in drier spells and adverse effects on human health via reduced food production and water supplies. In specific terms, intense periods of drought and flooding highly compromise water system supplies. For coastal cities, the rise in sea levels and storm surges affects infrastructure that is crucial for day-to-day operations of people (Muller, 99). According to UN-Habitat, recent reports indicate that sea level is rising twice faster than initially reported. Even so, this is only a result of one form of harsh weather patterns. Other extreme patterns exist like storms, flooding, drought and tropical cyclones. These cause serious impacts on water, energy and food supply, especially in developing countries. In fact, the people most affected are dwellers of informal urban settlements like slums (Ahern, 37).
The existent conventions including the Kyoto protocol and similar efforts by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) seem insufficien...