Climate Change

Climate change has become one of a major environmental issue of the twenty-century. It was directly driven by urban activities that release greenhouse gases (GHGs). However, this change, in turn, has negative impacts on urban areas. Climate change refers to a change in the world’s climate. This essay outlines the major problems caused by climate change. Then, it evaluates three possible strategies focusing on adaptation, mitigation and the integration of adaptation and mitigation. These strategies are suitable to alleviate the damage of global climate change, but integration strategy is more effective.

Climate change is expected to lead to three major problems in urban areas. Firstly, higher global temperature results in sea levels rise. Therefore, this phenomenon will influence coastal areas directly. Nicholls (2004, cited in Hunt and Watkiss 2011, p.31) states that many coastal cities, which are usually on low-lying zones, therefore, these urban areas are vulnerable to flooding from storm tides. Secondly, Climate change raised the frequency of extreme disasters in urban areas. Also, the impact of extreme weather events on urban areas is severe. For example, about $130 billion of damage was due to the Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Hallegatte 2006 and Hallegatte et al. 2007, cited in Hunt and Watkiss 2011, p.33). Another example of extreme weather events is happened in Dhaka in 1998, the flooding event, which combines with a huge tide, caused destruction to infrastructure, manufacturing production, waste and sewerage system and other public-service facilities (Hunt and Watkiss 2011, p.33). They also highlight that 284 people died, and around 200,000 people hospitalized. Lastly, climate change potentially affects water availability in urban areas. Because of the increase of atmospheric temperature, evaporation will be aggravated. As a consequence, it has the potential to cause water scarcity on urban areas (IPCC 2001, cited in Hunt and Watkiss 2011, p.36).

The...