{"id":6574,"date":"2021-07-09T14:35:05","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T14:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=6574"},"modified":"2021-07-09T14:35:05","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T14:35:05","slug":"canada-north-west-usa-heatwave-highlights-impact-that-cities-have-on-climate-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2021\/07\/09\/canada-north-west-usa-heatwave-highlights-impact-that-cities-have-on-climate-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\/North West USA heatwave highlights impact that cities have on climate crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

With record high temperatures causing devastation in Canada and North-West USA, Dr Jonathan Rock Rokem<\/a>, explains the link between urban areas and the global climate crisis.<\/p>\n

\u2018<\/em>The global climate crisis has reached new peaks with the scorching heatwave in\u00a0Canada and North-West USA<\/a>\u00a0leading to unpresented numbers of fatalities. The forecast is that we are heading into the hottest summer on record with a\u00a0massive heat wave to hit Europe<\/a>\u00a0by mid-July and prediction for even higher fatalities looming. Most deaths take place in larger urban areas where extreme temperatures have a more fatal impact due to lack of green and blue spaces and high densities leading to\u00a0urban heat islands effects<\/a>. Cities cover only 1% of the world\u2019s surface, but they are responsible for over\u00a075% of the world\u2019s carbon emissions<\/a>. At the same time, they are also the main victims in the unfolding climate emergency.<\/p>\n

\u2018The scale of the emergency and its impact is becoming one where an across disciplinary dialogue and a more nuanced appraisal of the role cities play in the global climate crisis is urgently needed.<\/p>\n

\u2018International institutions and environmental assessment processes continue to lead the global climate agenda. The UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals, and specifically\u00a0Goal 11<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0IPPC<\/a>\u00a0Sixth Assessment Report<\/a>\u00a0integrate more urban and social science into environmental policymaking. But at the same time, it appears that the social sciences engagement with climate still need further work as the recent heatwaves have exposed, to live up to growing global challenges and their impact on the local level.<\/p>\n

\u2018While cities lack the political power, policy mechanisms and funding of nation states, urban areas have an advantage in their capacity to promote action plans via global city networks such as\u00a0C40<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ICLEI<\/a>\u00a0to tackle the climate crisis developing climate adaption plans.<\/p>\n

\u2018There is an urgent need to take cities engagement with the global climate crisis more seriously with recent calls to\u00a0urbanise the discourse<\/a>. Within this argument is an acknowledgement of the debate being driven by differing concerns between the global \u2018North\u2019 and the global \u2018South\u2019, and the power and funding differentials that tends to cause tensions between the two in terms of aspirations towards implementing regional mitigation and adaptation opportunities and strategies.<\/p>\n

\u2018The key role of cities in this interdisciplinary debate seeks to establish a working interface between the social and physical sciences and is at the forefront of a new research and teaching agenda (BA Environmental Social Science<\/a>, and a new\u00a0Cities and the Climate Emergency<\/a>\u00a0module) established at the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With record high temperatures causing devastation in Canada and North-West USA, Dr Jonathan Rock Rokem, explains the link between urban areas and the global climate … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66395,"featured_media":6575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6576,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions\/6576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}