Although climate change is a global phenomenon, developing countries – especially urban centers – are the most vulnerable to the negative health impacts of climate change.  In “Urban Governance of Climate Change and Health,” a working paper for the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, author Siri Bjerkreim Hellevik reviews the existing literature on governments’ responses to climate change and health in developing urban centers. Overall, Hellevik concludes that there is a substantial need for more research specifically linking the two. She offers several recommendations for urban policymakers to consider, including developing an integrated and multi-level approach, and recognizing that human health and urban development are issues of global justice.

“The scale and the impact of disasters today can be greater than anything we’ve previously experienced,” said Laurie Mazur at the Wilson Center on March 18. “The proliferation of disasters has gotten a lot of people talking about resilience, about how we can lessen our risk and how we can recover more quickly from disasters of all kinds.” [Video Below]

“There is a huge gap between climate science, policymakers, and the end-users, in terms of understanding climate change and adaptation, and how that relates to conflict or peace,” concluded 26 experts from more than 10 countries across sub-Saharan Africa at the Wilson Center last fall. But “climate change adaptation is crucial to achieving Africa’s aspirations for peace, security, and sustainable development.”

From the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to Superstorm Sandy, the last decade has seen an incredible array of natural disasters. Of course, disasters of all kinds are nothing new, but, thanks to the growing scale and interconnectedness of the human enterprise – and the damage we have done to the natural world – the frequency, scale, and consequences of today’s calamities are truly without precedent.

The 2009 Copenhagen summit was a watershed moment in the history of climate change negotiations, especially from an Indian perspective. Brazil, South Africa, India, and China – the “BASIC” group – asserted their position, which led to a virtual collapse in talks, ostensibly marking the ascent of the global “south” and relative descent of the “north.”