The world is already facing the impact of climate change. High time we make our cities climate resilient.

A screenshot of the dinosaur video that was the centrepiece of the UNDP ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ campaign.

Sandeep Chachra

Co-chair of the World Urban Campaign of UNHABITAT and Executive Director, ActionAid Association. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations represented.

Every year, floods, storms, heat and cold waves, rising sea levels, water stress and air pollution disrupt the lives of millions of city dwellers. The impact is felt most by the vulnerable and impoverished residents of the cities, among them the informal workers – those who both make and sustain cities and urban lives.  The urban labouring poor live in informal settlements or slums, most often located in areas prone to landslides, flooding, and other natural disasters. The lack of protective infrastructure, inadequate civic services, and overcrowding increase their vulnerabilities. The UN-HABITAT estimates that there are a billion informal settlement inhabitants in the world currently. With the world continuing to urbanize, estimates are that by 2050, there will be 3.3 billion urban residents at risk of severe climate impacts.  The existing vulnerabilities are such that any adverse event pushes informal workers to complete precarity.

In India and Pakistan, a severe heatwave, also called a “steam wave”, led to 3,500 deaths in 2015. A 52% rise in the frequency of cyclones over the Arabian sea has been reported by Indian scientists, impacting several coastal areas, including towns. If measures to limit global warming to below 2 degrees centigrade are not embraced, as per an ActionAid report, more than 62 million South Asians will be forced to migrate out of their homes by 2050, more than treble the number in 2020.

The 7395 towns and cities of India face various challenges. With rapidly growing urban populations, the challenges of rising inequality, overburdened infrastructure, limited public services and rapid unplanned growth in urban India pushes climate action plans on the backburner in priorities of municipal governments. Pressure will only worsen, with 814 million Indians expected to be living in cities by 2050. Despite the 74th Constitutional Amendment and some efforts to delegate and delineate, the power of local bodies in cities remains quite limited. Urban development policies are still in the realm of State Governments, and cities’ financial and institutional capacities remain restricted. To raise finances, cities, for instance, still have to face lengthy permission processes curtailing their abilities to invite climate financing as well as innovative learning possibilities and needed partnerships. In general, India’s urban policymaking and planning remain top-down and unmindful of the diversities across and within cities. However, there are signs of progress on this front. While a 2016 global assessment of urban adaptation found no examples of municipal government adaptation plans in the 43 Indian cities that it reviewed, a more recent review of city plans and actions finds that of a sample of cities with more than one million population, approximately half had developed adaption plans. Of these, more than two-thirds were in implementation mainly through sectoral projects focussing on particular risks.

Empowering local governments empowers local stakeholders and communities to stimulate action. A survey of climate change initiatives found that of the 162 climate change initiatives studied in Asia, local non-state actors led 39% of them, involving communities, civil society, universities and the private sector in the urban areas.  Devolution enables the leadership of municipal administration and urban local bodies. For example, the Kochi municipal corporation of Kerala has been leading several innovative schemes to advance the idea of sustainable and inclusive Kochi, including a more recent initiative to lease out vacant plots for generating solar energy.

Advancing city resilience means undertaking quick actions on both adaptation and mitigation fronts. At one level, this needs developing sectoral and participatory town and city adaptation plans as part of national adaptation plans. These need a basis in city-scale risk assessments. Among the principles and approaches of The City We Need is the pathway of building urban futures that reduces risk and addresses climate change, as advancing resilience promotes economic regeneration and makes cities inclusive, healthier, liveable places to work and live.

We need to recognize that a city is only as resilient as its most marginalized inhabitants. Therefore resilience must strive to ensure the quality of life, long term survival and sustainability. The impact of climate change, for instance, has already led to disruptions of lives, livelihoods and futures of millions of marginalized urban populations whose vulnerability to the current pandemic has only force multiplied. Thus mitigation is not only a future effort but a here and now measure, whose propulsion must not see any roadblocks. It needs to begin with the most vulnerable, with steps to secure the right to dignified employment and wages for millions of informal workers in our cities, sustainable social housing and access to quality public services, and social protections to enjoy a quality of life. Those living in untenable spaces within cities and in overcrowded shanties must have rehabilitation based on free prior informed consent and not be subject to the injustice of sudden and demeaning evictions. Cities need to be safe and secure for women, girls and all children and vulnerable communities. Collective economic initiatives need to be encouraged, tenurial rights for the weakest need to be secured. The cities of today need clean and living waterbodies, protection and restoration of urban commons, green lungs and urban agriculture, and the promotion of nature-based solutions and ecosystem service. These actions strengthen direct mitigation efforts and eventually are steps towards just, green and healthy cities.

There is a global commitment to advance sustainable urbanization. In October 2021, local and national governments, urban dwellers movements, universities and communities were encouraged to build momentums for inclusive and sustainable urbanization. Adapting Cities for Climate Resilience is the theme chosen this year to mark the culmination of Urban October to enhance actions for adapting to and mitigating the sharply growing impact of climate change on urban life.  On this occassion the World Urban Campaign will celebrate the Mayor of Kochi as a City Changer.

As the world leaders come together in Glasgow for COP26 and city changers, converge with UNHABITAT at Luxor in Egypt to end October, millions of those who are deeply impacted watch with hope. In the unique campaign film developed by the UNDP, the unnamed dinosaur said in its address to global leaders at the UN general assembly, “Going extinct is a bad thing and driving yourself extinct… that’s the most ridiculous thing ever heard.” The dinosaur makes a plea for diverting money from fuel subsidies to investing in re-building economies after the pandemic. On those lines, there is an urgent need to create a new global fund, including measures of debt relief, to support countries to recover from climate disasters and slow-onset events, such as flooding, drought and rising sea levels.

We need a pro-poor and inclusive approach to climate change action.  More than just social imagery of sustainable urban life, we need a participatory, decentralized, futuristic and technology-enabled action on planning, building and managing cities. For a continent country like ours with immense cultural, ecological and landscape diversity, this constitutes the way forward. Let us be clear the alternative could very likely be extinction. Let’s not choose extinction.