I just got a posting from one of my students on the isue of cities and climate change. How would you respond to this?

“The growth of cities presents a whole range of development challenges. These relate to proper provision of urban infrastructure of all kinds, health education transport water sewage drainage waste etc. I question the extent that climate change adds to this list.

· Flood defences in coastal cities: sea rise of ½ m in the next 100 years is predicted, but the LECZ definition is under 10m, twenty times the sea level rise. IPCC has not shown that any changes in storm frequency are climate related. Even with no increase in storms there are storms and floods. People live on low lying land risk drowning.

· Transport: Better public transport has been a sound goal in cities since Victorian time.

· Energy efficient building design has been touted [and not taken up] for a long time.

· Water provision in drylands: Is that a new problem. Polanski’s film Chinatown deals with this issue in California in the 1930s. Difference in present water provision to poor people in dryland cities is uncorrelated with level of water
stress.

The questions of how we feed people, generate energy and transport them under climate change are there. That people are heading to the cities predates impacts of climate change. Development goals for cities seem to me to be little altered by climate change. Worse, everyone jumping on the bandwagon distracts from the proper focus.”