Publication Abstracts
Rosenzweig et al. 2011
, W.D. Solecki, S.A. Hammer, and S. Mehrotra, 2011: Urban climate change in context. In Climate Change and Cities: First Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network. , W.D. Solecki, S.A. Hammer, and S. Mehrotra, Eds., Cambridge University Press, pp. 3-11.
Cities, as home to over half the world's people, are at the forefront of the challenge of climate change. Climate change exerts added stress on urban environments through increased numbers of heat waves threatening the health of the elderly, the Ill, and the very yong; more requent and intense droughts and inland floods threatening water supplies; and for coastal cities, enhanced sea level rise and storm surges affecting people and infrastructure. At the same time, cities are responsible for a considerable portion of greenhouse gas emissions and are therefore crucial to global mitigation efforts. Though cities are clearly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, they are also uniquely positioned to take a leadership role in both mitigating and adapting to it because they are pragmatic and action-oriented; play key roles as centers of economic activity regionally, nationally, and internationally; and are often first in societal trends. There are also special features of cities related to climate change. These include the presence of the urban heat island and exacerbated air pollution, vulnerability caused by growing urban populations along coastlines, and high population density and diversity. Further attributes of cities specifically relevant to climate change relate to the presence of concentrated, highly complex, interactive sectors and systems, and multi-layered governance structures.
The Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) is a group of researchers dedicated to providing science-based information to decision-makers in cities around the world as they respond to climate change. The goal is to help cities develop effective and efficeint climate change mitigation and adaptation policies and programs. By so doing, the UCCRN is developing a model of within- and across-city interactions that is multidimensional, i.e., with multiple interactions of horizontal knowledge- sharing from the developing to developed cities and vice versa. The UCCRN works simultaneously by knowledge-sharing among small to mid-sized to large to megacities as well. Free-flowing multidimensional interactions are essential for optimally enhancing science-based climate change response capacities. The temporal dimension is also critical — the need to act in the near term on climate change in cities is urgent both in terms of mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and in terms of climate change adaptation. The UCCRN is thus developing an efficient and cost-effective method for reducing climate risk by providing state-of-the-art knowledge for policymakers in cities across the world in order to inform ongoing and planned private and public investments as well as to retrofit existing assets and management practices.
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BibTeX Citation
@inbook{ro00210r,
author={Rosenzweig, C. and Solecki, W. D. and Hammer, S. A. and Mehrotra, S.},
editor={Rosenzweig, C. and Solecki, W. D. and Hammer, S. A. and Mehrotra, S.},
title={Urban climate change in context},
booktitle={Climate Change and Cities: First Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network},
year={2011},
pages={3--11},
publisher={Cambridge University Press},
address={Cambridge, U.K.},
}
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RIS Citation
TY - CHAP ID - ro00210r AU - Rosenzweig, C. AU - Solecki, W. D. AU - Hammer, S. A. AU - Mehrotra, S. ED - Rosenzweig, C. ED - Solecki, W. D. ED - Hammer, S. A. ED - Mehrotra, S. PY - 2011 TI - Urban climate change in context BT - Climate Change and Cities: First Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network SP - 3 EP - 11 PB - Cambridge University Press CY - Cambridge, U.K. ER -
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