Climate change a threat to poor urban populations

Small changes, big disasters

Roha Teferra, Jun 13, 11.

The urban poor are especially vulnerable to natural disasters as a result of the “lack of adequate infrastructure and access to services, unsafe housing, insufficient nutrition, and poor health - all exacerbated by densely populated informal housing and treacherous terrain, according to Itir Sonuparlak of The City Fix reporting on a World Bank study - “Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the Urban Poor” - presented at the C40 Sao Paolo Summit.

“Local governments need to leverage existing and new resources to meet the shortfalls in service delivery and basic infrastructure adaptation,” according to the study, which lists 5 things that need to be done to help minimize the effects of climate change and disaster relief costs:

1. Assessing risk at the city and community level: Understanding hazards, socioeconomic, and institutional risks to developing adaptation and disaster risk reduction plans.
2. Integrating climate change and disaster risk reduction policies for the poor into urban planning and management: Creating proactive policies that provide affordable sites for low income residents and regulating land tenure to spawn investments and encourage infrastructure investments.
3. Building institutional capacity to deliver basic services and reduce vulnerability to climate and disaster risk.
4. Bridging communities and local governments to work together on local solutions.
5. Opening new finance opportunities for cities to address climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction, like climate funds, but, the World Bank adds, “bulk of investments will come from targeted government expenditures.”

(Image Credit: wallygrom, CC, flickr)