As Climate Week NYC gets under way in New York City, new research shows accelerating urbanisation, resource scarcity and climate change are among the main trends influencing the global decision-making agenda. My interview with Dr Rudolf Seiters from the German Red Cross sheds light on how these "mega trends" exacerbate the risk of humanitarian emergencies.
Climate change is one of the main mega trends affecting the decision-making agenda for global leaders. We recently asked over 1,100 leaders from businesses, governments and civil society from across the world to identify the mega trends that are influencing the agenda for big decisions at their organisations. More than a fifth of respondents to our survey (21%) say that climate change is influencing their organisation's agenda for big decisions (see chart below). This means climate change comes fourth in the list of top mega trends, behind accelerating urbanisation (28%), resource scarcity (27%) and the spread of mobile Internet (27%).
As we outline in a new report (sponsored by PwC) that is based on our global survey, accelerating urbanisation is driving the agenda from the boardroom to the city hall—from Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining company, and the ever-growing need to supply minerals more efficiently and at lower costs, to the city governments of Berlin and New York that have to deal with challenges such as overcrowding, road fatalities, and pollution.
Yet urbanisation, resource scarcity and climate change are strongly linked. Humanitarian emergencies often reflect a toxic mix of these trends. The president of the German Red Cross (DRK), Dr Rudolf Seiters, points out that climate change is one of the greatest challenges for the DRK's international cooperation, in combination with population growth, often unbridled urbanisation in developing countries, the related dependence on crisis-prone channels of supply and the overuse of vital resources.
Rapid urbanisation increases vulnerabilities to climate change, according to Dr Seiters. That is because especially in densely populated and urban areas there is a high risk that serious diseases occur more frequently, for example as a result of flooding. Here, the increase in extreme weather events exacerbates a number of existing risks. Often urban centres in less developed countries lack an appropriate urban planning and disaster prevention architecture designed to reduce risk. Poor communities are often marginalised, in particular in the urban context, and then usually have few alternatives but to settle in a city's high-risk areas (e.g. flood plains) where they are often denied access to government services, thus making these people particularly vulnerable to disasters.
According to UN projections to 2050, 90% of global population growth will take place in cities in developing countries. As a result of this rapid urbanisation, the existing infrastructural and social care capacities are already overburdened. Ineffective emergency and evacuation plans as well as unresolved responsibilities of municipal authorities can result in the massive failure of urban service systems in the event of a disaster. In addition, often inadequately secured industrial plants located within urban centres in developing countries raise corresponding risks in the event of a disaster. Hence, the DRK "always looks at climate change in the context of existing risks," Dr Seiters explains. "Climate change should be understood as an amplifier of these risks."
One thing is clear from our global survey: accelerating urbanisation, resource scarcity and climate change are key mega trends that influence the global decision-making agenda. But these are not isolated trends; they reinforce each other. And in the case of humanitarian emergencies, they can amplify each other's impact. The UN Climate Summit this week will provide global leaders with another opportunity to look at the interconnectedness of the trends that affect the global climate as they try to come up with joint plans for action.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.
