Report outlines 15 actions for cities to tackle climate change

A new report puts forward 15 actions to help cities tackle adapt to tackle the cimate crisis as well as build resilience.

Released by McKinsey Sustainability and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Focused Adaptation. A strategic approach to climate adaptation in cities, the actions are designed to work for many types of cities, identified based on risk-reduction potential, cost, feasibility, and stakeholder complexity.

The report examines five climate hazards – extreme heat, drought, wildfire, inland flooding and coastal flooding – and identifies actions directed at these particular climate risks as well as those that can help cities build systemic resilience. The actions outlined in the report include:

• Planting street trees
• Implementing cool surfaces such as white roofs and walls
• Adding coastal-based barriers, like mangroves
• Encouraging water conservation behaviour programmes
• Facilitating prescribed burns in forests
• Enhancing financial and insurance programmes
• Instituting emergency protocols and early warning systems, like evacuation plans and tropical storm early warnings.

“There’s no ‘one-size-fits all’ approach to adaptation and identifying the right steps to take can be daunting,” said Brodie Boland, partner at McKinsey and leader of McKinsey’s work on climate risk in the real estate and infrastructure sectors. “There is limited time and resources available for cities to adapt. We hope city leaders around the world will find this report to be a useful starting point to develop their own adaptation agendas.”

“The impacts of the climate crisis are already being felt across the world’s cities and mayors are taking the urgent steps needed to prepare for a rapidly heating world”

Cities are particularly vulnerable to climate-related risks. Currently, more than 90 per cent of all urban areas are coastal; by 2050, C40 Cities estimates that more than 800 million urban residents will be affected by sea level rise and coastal flooding. In addition, 1.6 billion could be vulnerable to chronic extreme heat (up from 200 million today), and 650 million could face water scarcity.