Climate change will affect cities strongly

The Asian Age , Monday, July 02, 2007
Correspondent : YOJNA GUSAIN
New Delhi, July 1: If urban concentration and inadequate urban management were not enough, climate change has also been added as another prime factor affecting the sustainable future of cities around the globe.

A recent UN report on urban growth has predicted that climate change will not only hit drier cities, but will also modify the migration patterns of rural and urban areas. The report states that the policy-makers should be aware of the fact that their "local decisions have far-reaching effects and conversely that climatic or eco-system changes may have a local impact".

Change in temperature and precipitation regime, frequency of floods and droughts, spread of diseases, water scarcity are some of the problems associated with climate change that the policy-makers will have to deal with, if no climate change adaptation methods are taken into consideration.

The report states that "decisions being made today about energy sources, transportation systems and spatial planning will have a long-term impact on the regional and global bio-physical processes that contribute to the global environmental change".

As per the report, much of the environmental refugees never return to the rural areas from where they were first displaced.

"Drought, flood and the other consequences of climate change can also modify migration patterns between rural and urban areas, or within urban areas," the report states.

Rapid urban growth along with impacts of climate change variability and climate change is likely to have severe consequences on environmental health in the tropics, which in turn will affect urban economy and social organisations.

Citing example, the report states that "severe floods in the Yangtze Basin in 1998 and 2002, caused by a combination of climate variability and human-induced land-cover changes, displaced millions of people, mainly subsistence farmers and villagers. Similar examples can be seen in India, Mexico and other poor countries".

The report also states that the impact of climate change on urban water supplies is likely to be dramatic and several developing countries are already facing accumulated lack of water supply, distribution, quality and discrimination

 
SOURCE : The Asian Age, Monday, 02 July 2007
 


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