Climate Change and Cities Second Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network

The Urban Climate Change Research Network's Second Assessment Report on Climate Change in Cities (ARC3.2) is the second in a series of global, science-based reports to examine climate risk, adaptation, and mitigation efforts in cities. The book explicitly seeks to explore the implications of changing climatic conditions on critical urban physical and social infrastructure sectors and intersectoral concerns. The primary purpose of ARC3.2 is to inform the development and implementation of effective urban climate change policies, leveraging ongoing and planned investments for populations in cities of developing, emerging, and developed countries. This volume, like its predecessor, will be invaluable for a range of audiences involved with climate change and cities: mayors, city officials and policymakers; urban planners; policymakers charged with developing climate change mitigation and adaptation programs; and a broad spectrum of researchers and advanced students in the environmental sciences.

Forewords Anne Hidalgo, Eduardo Paes, James Nxumalo and Joan Clos; Preface; Summary for city leaders; Introduction: 1. Pathways to urban transformation; 2. Urban climate science; 3. Disasters and risk in cities; Part I. Cross-Cutting Themes: 4. Integrating mitigation and adaptation: opportunities and challenges; 5. Urban planning and design; 6. Equity, environmental justice, and urban climate change; 7. Economics, finance, and the private sector; Part II. Urban Ecosystems and Human Services: 8. Urban ecosystems and biodiversity; 9. Coastal zones in urban areas; 10. Urban health; 11. Housing and informal settlements; Part III. Urban Infrastructure Systems: 12. Energy transformation in cities; 13. Urban transportation; 14. Urban water systems; 15. Urban solid waste management; Part IV. Governance and Urban Futures: 16. Governance and policy.

Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She is Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the mayor to advise the city on adaptation for its critical infrastructure. She co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, sponsored by the US Global Change Research Program. Rosenzweig was a Coordinating Lead Author of Working Group II for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She is Co-Director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and Co-Editor of the First UCCRN Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3), the first ever global, interdisciplinary, cross-regional, science-based assessment to address climate risks, adaptation, mitigation, and policy mechanisms relevant to cities. She is the founder of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), a major international collaborative effort to assess the state of global agricultural modeling, understand climate impacts on the agricultural sector, and enhance adaptation capacity, as it pertains to food security, in developing and developed countries. She was named as one of 'Nature's 10: Ten People Who Mattered in 2012' by the journal Nature. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to project future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College, New York and a Senior Research Scientist at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York.
William D. Solecki is a Professor in the Department of Geography, Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). He has led or co-led numerous projects on the process of urban environmental change and transformation. As Direc