How we save the city
Our Challenge
Extreme weather events - wildfires, urban heat, droughts, flashfloods, cyclones and storms - are bringing a new level of chaos and harm to our cities. The fast-growing model of urban development based on ceaseless economic growth is pushing our natural world to its limits, with almost half of non-human species now under threat. Long-standing social challenges of poverty, inequality, hunger, malnutrition, oppression and fear are everyday realities for far too many people.
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These are just some of the challenges that highlight the reality of the climate, ecological and social emergencies that cities are experiencing. We know that these converging emergencies are not natural phenomena, but human-made problems which mirror the growth of our globalised, corporate-dominated, industrialised urban world.
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To save the city we have to radically and rapidly reduce carbon emission, but in a way that protects and restores nature and leaves no one behind.
Scientists have warned that unless there are immediate, rapid, far reaching and large-scale changes to how we organise our society, stopping dangerous levels of global heating will be beyond reach within a matter of years.
Every city faces these challenges. They have to rapidly detox away from dependency on high carbon emissions and rapidly get on a path to zero carbon emissions. This is a wake up call for everyone involved in city life. Our city players have to make some big moves to tackle the triple emergencies. Every year counts and inaction will only make the task more difficult. We have to think big and start now.