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Adapting to Climate Change by City Tech Blogger Darren Le

Adaptations are largely focused on cities — but urban slums and rural areas are excluded.

Since 2010, the world’s population had lived in cities rather than rural areas. As a result, strategies have been developed to solve climate problems either with more air conditioning on hot days or planning to deal with water issues. These issues have been overwhelmingly geared toward urban places. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone will be helped. As people move from the countryside to cities,  a trend that has increased are  droughts or pests make farming harder.  It has led to migrants crowding into unplanned slums on the fringes of urban centers. For example, there are regions such as Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, where mudslides are a growing risk, or Lagos’ floating Makoko neighborhood, were makeshift homes on stilts face floods and waterborne illness. The report concludes: “There is limited evidence of investment in the informal settlements hosting the most vulnerable urban residents.”

The migration from the countryside leaves those who remain in rural areas in precarious situations, with fewer resources coming their way.

My comments:

The world has witnessed a gradual change in climate creating catastrophic challenges that the world has encountered . These challenges include increased migration, rising costs of items, and the need to adapt. Human beings have been at the forefront of devising adaptation measures, but the measures are slow and ineffective, making it difficult to deal with the situation wholly. The reason behind the ineffectiveness of the adaptation measures is that they are set up at local levels (Berrang-Ford et al., 2021). The measures to deal with climate change are locally based, meaning they do not have national or regional influence. For example, if a region of a country chooses to plant trees to reduce deforestation, another region may do the opposite  threatening uniformity.

The disparity of choices has affected climate change globally. According to Berrang-Ford et al. (2021), different continents prioritize climate change with varying solutions, and these choices drag behind continents. Once one continent lags in the fight, the effects might spread to other continents. For example, America and Europe are considered rich continents because they opt for measures relating to infrastructure and technology dealing with climate change. In contrast, Africa and Asia deploy behavioral and cultural measures which is ineffective solutions.

 

image: https://clubofmozambique.com/news/population-flee-flash-floods-and-mudslides-destroying-villages-in-central-mozambique/

 

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