Urban responses to climate change: a focus on the Americas

Climate change has been recognized by a large number of international organizations (United Nations, European Union, OECD, World Bank), scientific bodies (IPCC, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, IGBP, IHDP, START, IAI, APN, etc), business organizations, and many national, state, provincial, and local governments, as well as the international, national, and local mass media as a critical problem for the present and future of societies around the world. Although climate change has been identified as a major environmental challenge for some time, the current level of attention and consensus for action surpass previous considerations. Also remarkable is the recent recognition of the key role of urban areas in addressing the challenges created by climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Previous attention to climate change studied a broad range of sectors (agriculture, energy, fisheries, forestry, biodiversity, health, institutions, etc.) and processes (deforestation, land use, natural disasters, etc.), but little attention was given to urban areas and most of that attention had focused on their role in the emission of greenhouse gases.