Climate Change and a Global City: Learning from New York

Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Solecki, William

Often located on vulnerable coastlines and home to a rapidly growing percentage of the Earth's people, megacities are at the forefront of vulnerability and adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. As climate change impacts become more tangible and regional climate change forecasts improve, a dynamic is developing between climate change science and policy response in urban settings. Urban decision makers and managers face the challenge of devising new types of adaptations, adjustments, and mitigation strategies. Such adaptations and adjustments may include physical modifications to infrastructure (e.g., higher seawalls and raised airport runways); changes in decisionmaking practices (e.g., increased use of management strategies with overlapping jurisdictions and longer timeframes); and far-reaching societal shifts (e.g., disinvestment in highly vulnerable coastal sites and increased support for at-risk populations of the poor and elderly). These new responses, in turn, will interact with the ongoing processes of ecological and societal transition in large urban zones, as well as with policies implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Change and a Global City: Learning from New York

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