Urban Climate Adaptation and Mitigation - Chapter 2: Climate change adaptation and mitigation in cities

This chapter introduces the concepts of climate change adaptation and mitigation and depicts the scale of challenges that need to be addressed. Although climate change occurs naturally, anthropogenic events have accelerated it. For example, global temperatures have increased twice as rapidly in the past 50 years as it has in the preceding 100. The impacts of global warming on climate change have been proved to be significant, and they are anticipated to worsen in the coming decades. It will have long-term environmental, social, and other implications. Climate change has had and will continue to have an effect on human health, agriculture, forests, water bodies, coastal cities, animals, and nature reserves. Cities have distinct climate change implications such as the “Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI),” which worsens existing severe temperatures and air pollution. Hence, cities get warmer due to higher heat absorption on a frequent basis. Rapid urbanization in cities of developing countries has intensified UHI as evident in satellite sensor's images analysis of Dhaka city. From the same analysis, the increase in vegetation could help in mitigation and adaptation to climate change.