It begins with one simple fact.
95% of urban expansion in the next few decades will take place
in the global south.
Take a look at this graph.
The urban population is going to double.
And it's almost entirely happening in the global south,
where some of the most climate vulnerable cities are.
But they’ve done little to cause this vulnerability.
Instead, rich countries are responsible for 92% of excess emissions
directly causing the climate crisis.
And trust me,
there's no shortage of people talking about how to save our cities
for these big emitters.
And yet cities like Beira in Mozambique, Yangon in Myanmar, and Mutare
in Zimbabwe that regularly top the world's most affected by extreme weather events.
People who did the least damage to the environment are paying for it the most.
But rarely do we talk about how to save those cities. Poorest countries
are the ones that are suffering the most from climate change. Countries that have
contributed the least - developing countries -
suffering the most consequences.
This is a story about who we really end up saving
and who gets left behind.
Here's the thing.
Size matters, at least when it comes to cities.
100 years ago, they looked like this
and now they look like this.
Cities are growing and more and more people are making their way
towards urban centers in search of a better life.
We've watched cities go through constant cycles
of crisis, renewal and endurance.
But today, the ultimate challenger is here.
Climate change.
As we're all well aware, our cities are already suffering.
But in recent years, we've been doing our best
to try and find smart ways to adapt to this crisis.
From buildings that convert warm air into cooling systems
to floating cities off the coast of the Yellow Sea to whatever NEOM is.
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The smart solutions we've been experimenting with
often tend to be, well, exclusive, to say the least.
Adapting is good.
It's necessary, actually, it’s probably what's going to help save us.
But my question is, who are these solutions really for?
The future of the climate
conversation hinges on what happens in the Global South over the next 50 years.
And right now, we're not talking about that enough.
Seriously, just researching this video, the amount of stuff we found on
sustainable urban planning here versus here.
Whilst rich nations can afford shiny high tech solutions
to futureproof their cities,
the Global South has to think differently, and it already is.
Poorer nations are doing amazing things to prepare their cities for the future.
You just never got to see the blueprints and they're different from
the ones that we usually see. Beginning with one of the least likely things
that we would associate with the future. Mud.
Mud has been a cornerstone of indigenous architecture in places
like Subsaharan Africa, but in the mid-nineties, cities like
Dakar in Senegal started to abandon mud for much less sustainable concrete,
a legacy of colonial rule.
People began to associate mud with poverty and concrete with modernity.
But mud is amazing.
It has a high thermal heat mass,
which means it can retain heat in the winter and stay cool in the summer.
And this not only makes it incredibly energy efficient, but
it can also be recycled over and over again with minimal waste.
Mud-based solutions are now being rolled out across West Africa
and the rest of the world to help cities cope with the climate crisis.
These ancient traditions might have already unearthed nature's
best sustainability secret: Earth itself.
Check this out.
This is a bridge made out of a fig tree.
What the fig?
It's been helping local communities in North India
overcome swelling rivers during monsoon season.
Climate change is exacerbating monsoons,
making these incredible living bridges all the more important.
And for centuries, these bridges have helped indigenous Khasi
and Jaintia communities stay connected and protected from soil erosion.
And now they're making their way to European cities.
In Manila,
a city that sees at least eight typhoons a year, residents of the most affected
areas have been flood proofing their houses in some really creative ways.
From wet proofing walls, with waterproof coating to lifting their houses
above street level in order to delay the floodwaters coming in.
No shiny prototypes or hefty price tags, just really innovative ideas that work.
And there's a lot more. Elaborate sustainable water
supply systems, efficient zero waste architecture.
The list goes on and on.
Any solution that we envision for a future that has a fighting chance
against climate change has to consider everyone.
Our worlds are made up of the places that we live in, the people we share them
with, and the natural environment that surrounds us.
For far too long, there have always been tradeoffs in this formula.
We have a chance to build the next generation of sustainable
cities, ones that are perhaps not floating paradise islands for the rich,
but ones that can save as many people as possible from all over the world.
So when we ask ourselves how we can save a city,
the answer is by building a city that can save us all.