New cities may make millions more vulnerable to climate change
September 12, 2018, McGill University
A forthcoming study of over a hundred new cities being built around the world suggests developers and planning authorities are doing very little to make their projects resilient to climate change. On the contrary, a boom in new city projects in coastal areas – including some on reclaimed land in the sea – appears to fly in the face of the danger of rising sea levels and more frequent extreme weather events.
When McGill geography professor Sarah Moser mapped 120 new cities under construction across Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, she was struck by how many of them were in vulnerable coastal areas.
"I think this has to do with the fact that a lot of these projects are real estate projects. Everyone wants to live on the coast and new cities are often geared towards the wealthy – they're investment vehicles," Moser says.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-09-cities-millions-vulnerable-climate.html#jCp
