City and Climate

The battle for climate change will be won or lost in cities. Cities play an outsized role in climate change, consuming around 75% of the world's energy and producing more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. But they can also be part of the solution: creating meaningful impact while being small and nimble enough to avoid the bureaucracy of global politics. In fact, many have already started work. 2022 marked some of the most extreme weather events on record, with wildfires and droughts ravaging parts of Europe, the U.S. and Africa, while Asia battled disastrous flooding and monsoon rains. And experts warn it's just the beginning. 'What we calculated and what we knew as, say, one-in-10-year events is now becoming one-in-five-years. So, the frequency is increasing.' Our cities are at the forefront of those shifts. Today, more than half of the world's population live in urban areas, a figure that's set to rise to 68% by 2050. This migration pattern is driven partly by the climate crisis, which, in turn, creates new risks and stress for urban infrastructures.