Cities and Climate Change

This book explores why climate change responsiveness policies for cities have been slow to gain traction, even though climate change policies are nothing new, having been on the international agenda for the last 30 years. The contributing role of cities in accentuating the effects of climate change is increasingly demonstrated in the literature, underscoring the unsustainable models on which urban life has been made to thrive. As these issues become increasingly apparent, there are global calls to adopt more sustainable and equitable models, but this is particularly challenging because doing so will mean the disruption of economies that have historically relied upon pollution-generating industries to amass wealth and to strengthen their economic foothold and geo-political influence at the local, regional and international level. The authors address the topic by introducing the various dimensions from a cross-disciplinary perspective, and from regional, local and urban standpoints, and subsequently propose an alternative short-term economic model that could accelerate the adoption of climate change mitigation infrastructures and urban sustainability in urban areas.