The world is becoming increasingly urban, with cities now home to 45 percent of the global population of 8.2 billion, according to the World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results, released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). The number of people living in cities has more than doubled since 1950, when only 20 percent of the world’s 2.5 billion people lived in cities. Looking ahead through 2050, two-thirds of global population growth is projected to occur in cities, and most of the remaining one-third in towns.

What Is A Megacity?

The number of megacities, urban areas with 10 million or more inhabitants, has quadrupled from eight in 1975 to 33 in 2025. More than half of these megacities (19) are in Asia.

Jakarta (Indonesia) is now the world’s most populous city, with nearly 42 million residents, followed by Dhaka (Bangladesh) with almost 40 million, and Tokyo (Japan) with 33 million. Cairo (Egypt) is the only non-Asian city among the top ten. By 2050, the number of megacities is expected to rise to 37, with cities such as Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar es Salaam (United Republic of Tanzania), Hajipur (India), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) projected to surpass the 10 million mark.

Despite the prominence of megacities, the report finds that small and medium-sized cities are home to more people than megacities and are growing at a faster pace, particularly in Africa and Asia. Of the 12,000 cities analyzed, 96 percent have fewer than one million inhabitants, and 81 percent have fewer than 250,000. 

The new data show that the total number of cities worldwide more than doubled between 1975 and 2025, and projections indicate that by 2050, the number of cities worldwide could exceed 15,000, with most having populations below 250,000.

The report also highlights the divergent growth patterns of cities. While many cities continue to expand, others are experiencing population decline. Notably, some city populations are shrinking even as their countries’ populations grow, while others are growing despite the decline of the national population. Most shrinking cities had fewer than 250,000 inhabitants in 2025, with over one-third located in China and 17 percent in India. However, some very large cities, including Mexico City and Chengdu, China, have also seen population decreases.

The Future Of Towns and Rural Areas

Towns, defined as population clusters of at least 5,000 inhabitants and a density of at least 300 people per square kilometer, are the most common settlement type in 71 countries as diverse as Germany, India, Uganda, and the United States. They connect rural areas and cities, offering essential services and supporting local economies.

Rural areas remain the most common settlement type in 62 countries today, down from 116 in 1975. By 2050, this number is projected to decline further to 44 countries. Rural settlements still dominate in some countries in Europe including Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, and Romania, as well as in numerous countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as the Central African Republic, Chad, Eswatini, Mozambique and Zambia. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where rural populations have continued to grow significantly, and the region is expected to account for nearly all future rural population growth.

“The United Nations underscores the pivotal role of urbanization in driving sustainable development and climate resilience across all settlement types,” said Li Junhua, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. “Urbanization is a defining force of our time. When managed inclusively and strategically, it can unlock transformative pathways for climate action, economic growth, and social equity. To achieve balanced territorial development, countries must adopt integrated national policies that align housing, land use, mobility, and public services across urban and rural areas.”

The World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results provides a critical evidence base for policymakers, planners, and researchers working to shape sustainable, inclusive, and resilient urban futures. For more information, visit population.un.org.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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The terrorist attacks of 9/11 reminded Americans of the importance of defending the homeland from all threats–foreign and domestic. Unfortunately, American soil and our water have become hopelessly contaminated with deadly chemicals and neurotoxins. Laws, science and public health are being ignored as the bioterrorism persists today.

The U.S. government enacted the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (the Bioterrorism Act) to protect the homeland, including food and water supplies.

Despite these systems and safeguards, 99 percent of us now have highly toxic PFAS in our blood as part of the largest chemistry experiment in world history. Meanwhile, the mismanagement of infectious waste is fueling an unstoppable surge in neurodegenerative disease among humans and wildlife (and possibly livestock). Family farms and public health are being destroyed by bioterrorism.

Most Americans and others around the world are consuming PFAS-contaminated water and/or food, using contaminated products or breathing contaminated air. At least 45 percent of America’s tap water is estimated to have one or more types of the chemicals known as per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, according to a 2023 study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, not all of which can be detected with current tests; the USGS study tested for the presence of 32 types. PFAS is just the tip of a very large and very toxic iceberg. Unstoppable neurotoxins might pose an even more formidable threat.

Mismanagement Has Weaponized Biosolids

Wastewater is the largest waste stream in the world and possibly the most toxic waste stream in the world. It is largely unregulated. Wastewater treatment facilities in the United States alone process approximately 34 billion gallons of wastewater every day. There was a time when human sewage was a fairly benign substance that cities and towns could disperse naturally without threatening an entire nation. 

Today’s wastewater stream includes everything dumped down the drains and toilets at homes and offices, factories, hospitals, health clinics, slaughterhouses, mortuaries, auto repair shops and much more. It isn’t fertilizer.

We’re all part of the sewage problem, but misinformation, disinformation, incomplete science and more have compounded the problem at all levels. It has caused an environmental catastrophe and a public health disaster. It is still unfolding and gaining momentum.

Wastewater treatment plants are barely able to separate the liquids from the solids in this high-volume, toxic soup. Neutralizing and removing all neurotoxins, forever chemicals and radionuclides, for example, is impossible. Safe handling and disposal of this deadly waste stream is imperative, but the reality is much different. After superficial treatment, the water and the solids are pumped right back into the homeland for reuse. Just a few years ago, sewage sludge killed underwater ecosystems, when dumped at sea.

Today, it is being hyped as fertilizer for farms, ranches, golf courses, parks, ballparks, school grounds, cemeteries, forests and beyond. Like magic, sewage sludge became biosolids and wastewater is now drinking water. The waste stream is the new gold rush. What could go wrong?

Sewage Sludge Kills Ecosystems

In October 1972, Congress enacted the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA), a.k.a. the Ocean Dumping Act, to regulate the dumping of all materials that adversely affect human health, welfare or amenities, or the marine environment. It took the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 (an amendment to the MPRSA) to prohibit the dumping of municipal sewage sludge, industrial waste and medical waste into the ocean.

Bans were motivated by the discovery of contaminated wastes from sewage-derived microorganisms at public beaches, toxic metals in shellfish beds, and parasites in fish. Sludge can contain heavy metals like cadmium and copper, which sewage treatment plants can’t filter out. Ocean dumping can destroy marine habitats and ecosystems. 

Unfortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been pushing a different story for the past 30 years. In response to the ban on dumping sewage sludge at sea, the EPA expedited a flawed, if not fraudulent, risk assessment and concluded that the toxic waste that destroyed marine ecosystems was actually beneficial to open land, including farmland, ranches, forests, parks, golf courses, school grounds, ballparks and city parks.

Biosolids is a glorified term for sewage sludge. The EPA estimates that more than 2.4 million tons are applied to land annually as fertilizer on farms, pastures, parks, home gardens, and other lands. Biosolids are made from both municipal and industrial waste, and although they are treated to remove pathogens and some other materials, PFAS are not removed during treatment and EPA does not currently limit the amount of PFAS they can contain.

It calls biosolids a cheap fertilizer (they pay farmers to take this toxic waste off their hands). Now, many farms and ranches are paying the ultimate price for this cheap fertilizer.

When applied to land, the toxins in sewage sludge ultimately make it into surface water runoff and groundwater. These solids bake in the sun and are reduced to particles that go airborne. When applied to land, sewage sludge contaminates everything downstream, including our food and water supplies. Plants uptake everything in the soil and water. The extreme weather associated with climate change is spreading this toxic waste far and wide.

When biosolids are applied to soil, they are used mostly for corn for animal feed and energy, followed by hay/grass/forage. Other popular crops for biosolids fertilization are wheat and other grains, followed by Class A EQ products widely used on turfgrass (lawns, erosion control, golf courses, landscaping).

The Sludge Rule

The US EPA regulates biosolids through the “503 Rule” (40 CFR Part 503 Biosolids Rule), which is affectionately known among critics as the sludge rule. The sludge rule is pseudoscience at best. It basically sweeps all risks and unknowns under the rug. It also holds those who manage and mismanage sewage sludge harmless against crimes against nature and crimes against humanity. For example, biosolids are classified into Class A and Class B, with Class A having stricter guidelines and no detectable levels of pathogens. Class A biosolids can be used in public areas, while Class B has restrictions on access and harvests from these contaminated lands. Let’s test those Class A biosolids for PFAS and neurotoxins.

Risk Assessment Flawed

After falsely promoting the virtues of dumping sewage sludge on land for more than 30 years, the U.S. EPA admitted the error of its ways. In 2018, it announced that the risk assessment that it has relied on is actually incomplete. It failed to address all of the known contaminants and the emerging contaminants. It basically admitted that it authorized an illegal and reckless dumping program that has contaminated food, water, air and more. Unfortunately, the EPA failed to stop the practice of dumping sewage sludge on land–public and private. As a result, this illegal dumping program continues to threaten humans, livestock and wildlife.

PFAS are a large group of manufactured chemicals that are used to make everyday products, including cosmetics, carpet, food packaging, Teflon and fire retardants. PFAS are used in aerospace, automotive, construction, electronics, and military. PFAS is often listed on products as PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), perfluorooctyl triethoxysilane, perfluorononyl dimethicone, perfluorodecalin, and perfluorohexane.

The medical world is still analyzing the full impact of PFAS on human and animal health, but we know that sewage sludge is soaked in these forever chemicals and that biosolids are contaminating food, water and families today. Forever chemicals can increase the risk of many diseases and disorders:

• Decreased fertility, increased risk of high blood pressure in pregnant women, and lower infant birth weight;
• Accelerated puberty, bone variations, or behavioral changes in children;
• Decreased response to vaccines in infants and children;
• Higher cholesterol and elevated liver enzymes;
• Increased risk of some cancers, including kidney, testicular, and prostate cancers; and
• Increased risk of thyroid disease, with sex-specific outcomes in women and men.

Unfortunately, the companies who developed and manufactured PFAS knew about many of the dangers associated with this new class of compounds all along. Thanks to negligence and fraud, the vast majority of Americans of all ages are now part of this chemistry experiment. It’s safe to say that PFAS has contaminated most of the food and water supplies around the world. The contaminant also threatens fish, wildlife and livestock.

PFAS + Pathways = Victims

Since PFAS chemicals are found in so many different products, assessing the potential human health and environmental risks are extremely complex. Risks are associated with manufacturing, distribution, usage and disposal.

Thanks to one very tenacious lawyer named Robert Bilott, legal battles against PFAS are gaining momentum. The movie Dark Waters summarizes Bilott’s courageous work and it documents the horrors of Dupont’s deceit. The movie is based on an article written by Nathaniel Rich, a reporter for the New York Times. Bilott is an environmental attorney from Cincinnati. He is known for PFAS lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from West Virginia. Mr. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of forever chemicals.

Thanks to Bilott’s groundbreaking work, San Diego is suing more than 20 companies over water contamination caused by PFAS. The lawsuit claims that 3M, DuPont, Raytheon and others made firefighting foam that contained PFAS and alleges the companies were aware of the toxic nature of the chemicals, but concealed the environmental and public health dangers.

Neurodegenerative Disease Soaring Among Mammals

Unfortunately, PFAS is only part of the toxic threat posed by dumping millions of tons of sewage sludge (biosolids) on land. Neurodegenerative disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. Most of this surge is caused by a neurotoxin called a prion. Thanks to misinformation, disinformation and overall mismanagement, this unstoppable neurotoxin is spreading through our food, water, health systems and beyond.

Prions are a formidable threat. The government initially classified prions as select agents, which means that they pose an extreme risk to food, water and health systems. Since prions don’t usually kill within days of exposure, they were removed from the list. Neurodegenerative disease has been surging around the world for the past 30 years and prion contamination is driving this silent, but massive pandemic.

Prion disease includes Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease (GSS), Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and others. Many of these diseases are related in terms of cause and pathology. The biggest difference between the different prion diseases is the region of the brain that’s under attack. The scientific name for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). As the name implies, all forms of TSE are transmissible. They are impossible to stop.

Since deadly prions spread through the bodily fluids and tissue of those carrying prion disease (milk, blood, saliva, mucus, urine, feces, tissue and skin), that’s a problem for wastewater systems. Prions shed from infected humans are highly transmissible.

Prion disease also is known as mad cow disease in livestock and chronic wasting disease in wildlife. The only difference between these diseases is the species impacted. There is no such thing as a mad cow prion or a CWD prion. An infectious prion is a deadly prion that can jump species barriers with ease. Prions migrate, mutate and multiply. There are now millions of mutations.

Cattlemen in America claim that there is no need to test their livestock for mad cow disease. As long as some livestock are deliberately exposed to prion contamination in biosolids, food safety is a legitimate concern. If we don’t stop dumping sewage on land we must start testing for prion disease, which will cost even more than doing the right thing with toxic waste.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that prions are in sewage sludge and wastewater–and that there is no way to detect them or stop them. As such, the EPA has never issued guidance on prion management within sewage processing plants. This lack of directive allows budget-strapped states and counties to regulate the practices in a variety of ways that best suit local municipalities and industries.

After years of mismanagement, wastewater treatment plants have become prion incubators and distributors. When released on open land, the prions shed from humans will find more victims. Prions shed from humans are typically the most aggressive because prions mutate as they move up the food chain.

Prions + Pathways = Victims

Managing prion pathways, and preventing new ones, is clearly part of the equation. Reusing components of this waste stream is causing a public health catastrophe. Victims and stakeholders are pushing back. Rightly so. Safer alternatives exist.

According to prion researcher Joel Pedersen at the University of Wisconsin, prions in soil become up to 680 times more infectious. From there, they migrate, mutate and multiply. It’s a real world version of Pandora’s Lunchbox.

“Our results suggest that if prions enter municipal wastewater treatment systems, most prions would bond to sewage sludge, survive anaerobic digestion, and be present in treated biosolids,” Pedersen said. “Land application of biosolids containing prions represents a route for their introduction into the environment. I emphasize the importance of keeping prions out of municipal wastewater treatment systems.”

Prions could end up in sewage treatment plants via slaughterhouses, hospitals, dental offices and mortuaries just to name a few of the pathways. The disposal of sludge represents the greatest risk of spreading prion contamination in the environment. Pedersen also found that sewage treatment does not inactivate prions. Therefore, prions are lethal, mutating, migrating and multiplying everywhere sewage (biosolids) is dumped.

Prions in humans have worked their way up the food chain, so prions shed from humans are typically much more aggressive and they don’t respect species barriers. Prions in sewage and other forms of infectious waste are driving the explosive growth in neurodegenerative disease among our friends and family members. The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, ALS, and other forms of neurodegenerative disease have never been higher. Neurodegenerative disease is the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. There is no vaccine and no cure. Prevention is the only defense.

Prions shed from humans in municipal sewage sludge have caused much of the explosive growth in chronic wasting disease–in the wild and on deer farms. This prion super-highway puts livestock at risk of mad cow disease. Crops grown in sludge also can uptake and transmit deadly prions.

How has such a dangerous dumping program escaped laws, including the Clean Water Act and the Bioterrorism Act? Like forever chemicals, prion contamination lasts forever.

How Much Sewage Is Dumped On Land In Your State? The Environmental Working Group estimates that 5 percent of the nation’s cropland, or 20 million acres, could be using sewage sludge as fertilizer. Unfortunately, it is being dumped on open land of all types, including ranches, golf courses, parks and school grounds. Follow this link to see how much sewage is reclaimed and dumped in your state. https://www.biosolidsdata.org/ 

Safer Alternatives Available. Surveys of Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse Facilities show that the average costs to have a contractor take and manage solids from wastewater treatment plants is approximately:

• $49 per wet ton for composting; 
• $58 for landfill disposal; 
• $62 for land application; and 
• more than $95 for incineration. 

It’s cheaper to landfill this toxic crap than to dump it in our watersheds and in our communities. Most state regulators have few resources dedicated to biosolids oversight.

Nations, States and Communities Banning Biosolids

There are no labeling or disclosure requirements for food grown in sewage sludge. However, some companies, such as Heinz and Del Monte, prohibit the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer for their products. Fortunately, most nations, states and counties are waking up to the consequences of bad public policy:

• In 1995, the Netherlands banned the spreading of sludge on its own farmland, but later began exporting it to other countries. 

• In 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture finally ruled that food grown in sewage sludge can not be classified as organic. Only by purchasing food with the certified organic seal can you be sure that your food was not grown in sewage sludge.

• In 2003, Switzerland banned the use of sludge due to concerns that sludge contains harmful substances and pathogenic organisms that could damage soil, harm public health, and negatively impact food quality.

• In 2004, the Superior Court of Richmond County, GA dismissed claims filed by McElmurray Farm that land-applied biosolids caused the deaths of dairy cows in the 1990s. In 2008, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate McElmurray whose land was poisoned by sludge from the waste treatment plant here. His cows died by the hundreds. The judge ordered the government to compensate dairy McElmurray because 1,730 acres were poisoned. The sludge contained levels of arsenic, toxic heavy metals and PCBs two to 2,500 times federal health standards. The level of thallium — an element once used as rat poison — found in the milk was 120 times the concentration allowed in drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency.

• In 2014, health foods grocer Whole Foods stopped sourcing produce from growers who use sewage sludge on their farms.

• In 2022, in response to PFAS contamination, Maine became the first state in the nation to end the beneficial use (land application) of wastewater biosolids, which created a series of challenges for Maine’s wastewater systems and produced landfill capacity problems. Several farms have been shut down due to PFAS contamination. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack have met with the farmers in her state who have found PFAS contamination. High levels of PFAS have shut down dairies, and at least some organic vegetable farmers have voluntarily stopped selling produce after water levels showed high concentrations of PFAS chemicals.

“We are finding it all over our state,” Pingree said. “Some of the farmers don’t have the time to wait for the state, so they are paying for their own testing. They are finding extremely high levels of contamination in their bodies and in their children’s bodies. I just can’t say enough how hard it is to witness what is going on.”

Pingree credited Maine lawmakers for agreeing this year to spend $100 million to help farmers whose ground has been contaminated. Decades of using sewage sludge as a fertilizer has ruined farms, Pingree said.

Maine’s crackdown began in 2017, when Fred and Laura Stone had to shut down their dairy farm due to extreme levels of PFAS contamination caused by spreading sludge on their farm decades ago. Maine has since created a $60 million fund to help PFAS-impacted farmers.

• In 2022, Michigan seized Jason Grostic’s farm and banned the sale of milk or meat because of PFAS contamination. States such as Michigan have been finding high volumes of PFAS chemicals in city water and wells. But along with that, PFAS chemicals attach themselves to biosolids such as sewage sludge, which is how farmers in a few states are learning that their soils are contaminated. Michigan set a standard of not allowing PFAS for land applications containing more than 150 parts per billion, and biosolids such as sewage sludge must be tested before it can be applied on land. Grostic, who lost his livelihood and property value, said other farmers need to understand what can happen with PFAS and sewage sludge.

• In 2022, officials in Maine and Michigan each released warnings against eating fish from several streams, rivers and lakes because of high levels of PFAS/PFOS.

• In New Mexico, in 2022, four years after milk from his dairy cattle tested positive for high levels of PFOS, Art Schaap finally euthanized the last of his 4,000-head dairy herd. Schaap learned in October 2018 that his dairy farm had been contaminated through groundwater just outside Cannon Air Force Base, where PFOS-laden foam chemicals were used extensively to train firefighters. Schaap’s dairy was prevented from selling both milk and cattle. The cattle were moved to clean water in February 2020. USDA officials wanted to see if the cows would shed the PFOS from their bodies once the cows were given clean water. But tests never showed any signs of improvement. Schaap, along with some dairies in Maine, received indemnity payments from USDA for dumping their milk.

Courtney Briggs, the senior director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said PFAS contamination is an emerging and alarming issue for its members.

“It sets off alarm bells and starts to create anxiety when you have a situation where, unbeknownst to you and through no fault of your own, your land could be contaminated by a forever chemical,” Briggs said. 

• In Texas, five farmers are suing Synagro for providing sewage sludge to a neighboring farmer who spread it on his land. The plaintiffs claim that the sewage sludge contaminated their water supply, affected their health, damaged their land and killed their livestock.

Dana Ames, an environmental crimes investigator with the Johnson County Constable’s Office, collaborated with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to test the farmers’ water, soil, wildlife and livestock. Results found high levels of PFAS in well water, surface water, soil, fish and a stillborn calf. Ames also obtained a sample of Synagro’s fertilizer and had it tested. Many of the PFAS found in the sample were also present on the farms.

“The results we got back are very damning,” said Ames, who is pursuing a criminal case on the matter. 

Ames predicts more lawsuits as more people nationwide test for contaminants from sludge. The lawsuit claims Synagro should have known the risks of the product and failed to warn users.

• In 2024, the biggest water district in Maine is suing manufacturers of so-called forever chemicals in the hopes of recouping costs of monitoring and treating polluted wastewater. The Portland Water District lawsuit comes as the cost of the disposal of PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge has doubled from $1.6 million to $3.2 million over the last three years, and Portland has agreed to develop a regional biosolids treatment facility proposal with cost estimates ranging from $150 million to $250 million. The Portland Water District lawsuit focuses on wastewater. The district is already in compliance with strict EPA limits on certain PFAS in drinking water that will require utilities to reduce them to the lowest level possible.

Wastewater Isn’t  Drinking Water

Unfortunately, the same regulators who sold us on the virtues of sewage sludge based on a fraudulent risk assessment also have sold us on the virtues of turning sewage into drinking water. Are those risk assessments “incomplete?” For example, how are they accounting for deadly prions? How do they establish a safe level for PFAS? Where is the data?

Summary:

• Dumping sewage sludge on land in the U.S. and other countries has always been illegal because there has never been a comprehensive, credible risk assessment that proves that dumping a toxic soup of neurotoxins, carcinogens, radionuclides, endocrine disruptors and PFAS on farms, ranches, golf courses, school grounds, ball parks, city parks, gardens and forests is safe; 
• The EPA should have immediately stopped all dumping of sewage sludge on land in November 2018, when it announced that its risk assessment is incomplete. It should be stopped immediately;
• The states and counties should immediately disclose where sewage sludge has been dumped since the inception of the program. The property owners, their families and their neighbors should be notified about the past and present risks and independent health studies should begin immediately. Test all local water sources for contaminants. Remediate and contain the damage;
• The US EPA should notify every nation that relied on its fraudulent risk assessment regarding sewage dumping. Canada, for example, just copied the one from the United States and called it a day. Since then, it had its first confirmed case of mad cow disease and it has given up on the fight against chronic wasting disease;
• Make it mandatory to notify all land buyers, banks and insurers about the toxic history of sewage dumped on the properties that they underwrite or finance;
• Compensate stakeholders for loss of property, injury and wrongful death;
• Enforce the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, the Clean Water Act and other regulations designed to defend the homeland and more than 300 million Americans;
• Review the risk assessment for reclaimed water that is being reused as drinking water and to replenish aquifers. How are they removing all PFAS and prions? and
• Reform the EPA immediately to protect citizens and our vital natural resources. Several former EPA Administrators are leading that request.
• Tell the truth about the prion pandemic. There is not a vaccine that prevents it. There isn’t a cure. It is always fatal. All forms are transmissible. There is no credible, scientific research that states otherwise. Misinformation, disinformation and wishful thinking are reckless. Yes, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease spread through bodily fluids, including blood and mucus. They spread through cell tissue, including skin. A mortician will not touch the body of someone who died of prion disease. Family, friends and caregivers beware.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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Electricity is central to the functioning of modern societies and economies. Unfortunately, power generation is the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the world.

The world’s demand for electricity grew by 2.2 percent in 2023, less than the 2.4 percent growth observed in 2022. While China, India and numerous countries in Southeast Asia experienced robust growth in electricity demand in 2023, advanced economies posted substantial declines.

Global electricity demand is expected to rise at a faster rate over the next three years, growing by an average of 3.4 percent annually through 2026. The gains will be driven by an improving economic outlook, which will contribute to faster electricity demand growth both in advanced and emerging economies. Particularly in advanced economies and China, electricity demand will be supported by the ongoing electrification of the residential and transport sectors, as well as a notable expansion of the data center sector.

There are more than 8,000 data centers globally, with about 33 percent located in the United States, 16 percent in Europe and 10 percent in China. Hundreds of new data centers are in development.

Data center electricity usage is set to double by 2026, due to power-intensive workloads such as AI and cryptocurrency mining. Data centers consumed 460TWh in 2022, a figure that could rise to more than 1,000TWh by 2026, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan.

Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10–50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office building. The US is home to 33 percent of the world’s data centers, where energy consumption is expected to rise from 200TWh in 2022 to 260TWh in 2026, some six percent of all power use across the country.

In Ireland, data centers could account for 32 percent of all power consumption by 2026 due to a high number of new builds planned. This compares to 17 percent in 2022. As reported by DCD, calls to limit the number of new data center projects in Ireland because of their energy use were rejected by the Irish government last year.

Electricity demand in data centers is mainly from two processes, with computing accounting for 40 percent of electricity demand of a data center. Cooling requirements to achieve stable processing efficiency similarly makes up about another 40 percent. The remaining 20 percent comes from related IT equipment.

Market trends, including the fast incorporation of AI into software programming across a variety of sectors, increase the overall electricity demand of data centers. Search tools like Google could see a tenfold increase of their electricity demand when fully implementing AI in the process. When comparing the average electricity demand of a typical Google search (0.3 Wh of electricity) to OpenAI’s ChatGPT (2.9 Wh per request), and considering 9 billion searches daily, this would require almost 10 TWh of additional electricity in a year. Similar power demands will be required across the digital cloud.

Hopefully, AI will help corporations, advocates and governments  improve measurement and increase resilience, while helping us use energy and resources more efficiently. Better data can promote better plans and better decisions.

“Updated regulations and technological improvements, including efficiency, will be crucial to moderate the surge in energy consumption from data centers,” the report’s authors said.

According to the report, the 460TWh consumed by data centers in 2022 represented two percent of all global electricity usage.

The rate at which electricity usage will increase by 2026 depends on “the pace of deployment, range of efficiency improvements, as well as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency trends”, the report said, but the authors expect demand to rise to somewhere between 650TWh and 1,050TWh. This increase is equivalent to adding the entire power consumption of a country like Sweden at the lowest end of the scale, or Germany at the highest.

Legislation could curtail some of this electricity demand, the report said, with the European Union’s energy efficiency directive, published last September, putting new obligations on data center operators on the continent, the first of which is a requirement for emissions reports to be filed by any data center larger than 500kW. This comes into effect in May.

Data center operators are also experimenting with more efficient cooling and heat reuse technologies, with providers including Aligned and Stack launching high-density racks water-cooled racks for power-intensive workloads such as AI in recent weeks.

Microsoft powered one of its data centers for two days using an experimental hydrogen fuel cell system, though the viability of this technology remains in doubt. The IEA report also predicts that the growth of renewable energy production will accelerate, and claims renewables will overtake coal to generate more than a third of the global electricity by 2025.

Mark Yeeles, vice president of the secure power division at Schneider Electric UK and Ireland, said the findings of the report come as “no surprise.”

“The general consumption of our data and digital habits – social media, email, business applications, streaming, gaming, scientific research, and enterprise – combined with the adoption of AI platforms, is compounding global data center growth at a phenomenal rate,” Yeeles said.

But he believes the data center industry’s willingness to integrate new technologies which reduce demand on the grid mean it can be part of the solution.

On the situation in Ireland, Yeeles called for “immediate, sustainable action” to avoid a power crisis. He believes it is important that “government and industry collaborate more closely, and combine existing technologies with innovative engineering to future proof the country’s energy, economic, and technological outlook.”

The revised Energy Efficiency Directive from the European Commission includes regulations applicable to the European data center sector, promoting more transparency and accountability to enhance electricity demand management. Starting from 2024, operators have mandatory reporting obligations for the energy use and emissions from their data centers, and large-scale data centers are required to have waste heat recovery applications, when technically and economically feasible, while meeting climate neutrality by 2030.

An earlier EU regulation, applicable since 2020, sets efficiency standards for data centers enabling better control over their environmental impact. A self-regulatory European initiative created in 2021, called the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, sets targets to achieve climate neutrality in the sector by 2030. More than 60 data center operators have signed on to the pact, including large operators like Equinix, Digital Realty and Cyrus One.

In the United States, the Energy Act of 2020 requires the federal government to conduct studies on the energy and water use of data centers, to create applicable energy efficiency metrics and good practices that promote efficiency, along with public reporting of historical data center energy and water usage. 

The Department of Energy (DOE) is supporting the local production of semiconductors and is funding the development of more efficient semiconductors over the next two decades. More efficient semiconductors reduce cooling requirements, thus supporting the decarbonisation of the sector. At a state level, regulators in Virginia and Oregon have already imposed requirements for better sustainability practices and carbon emissions reductions. 

Chinese regulators will require all data centers acquired by public organizations to improve their energy efficiency and be entirely powered by renewable energy by 2032, starting with a 5% share mandate for renewables in 2023.

AI electricity demand can be forecast more comprehensively based on the amount of AI servers that are estimated to be sold in the future and their rated power. The AI server market is currently dominated by tech firm NVIDIA, with an estimated 95% market share. In 2023, NVIDIA shipped 100 000 units that consume an average of 7.3 TWh of electricity annually. 

Elsewhere, electricity demand in China rose by 6.4 percent in 2023, driven by the services and industrial sectors. That figure is expected to slow slightly over the next few years thanks to the rapid deployment of solar electricity.

In 2023, India’s demand for electricity grew by 7 percent. We expect growth above 6 percent on average annually until 2026, supported by strong economic activity and expanding ownership of air conditioners. While renewables will meet almost half of this demand growth, one-third is expected to come from rising coal-fired power. Southeast Asia will see strong annual increases in electricity demand of 5 percent on average through 2026, due to strong economic activity.

Per capita consumption in Africa even declined in recent years as the population grew faster than electricity supply was made available. Africa’s per capita electricity consumption in 2023 was half that of India.

Electricity demand in the United States fell by 1.6 percent in 2023 after increasing 2.6 percent in 2022, but it is expected to recover in the 2024-26 outlook period. A key reason for the decline was milder weather in 2023 compared with 2022, though a slowdown in the manufacturing sector was also a factor. We forecast a moderate increase in demand of 2.5 percent in 2024, assuming a reversion to average weather conditions. This will be followed by growth averaging 1 percent in 2025-26, led by electrification and the expansion of the data center sector, which is expected to account for more than one-third of additional demand through 2026.

Electricity demand in the European Union declined for the second consecutive year in 2023, even though energy prices fell from record highs. Following a 3.1 percent drop in 2022, the 3.2 percent year-on-year decline in EU demand in 2023 meant that it dropped to levels last seen two decades ago. As in 2022, weaker consumption in the industrial sector was the main factor that reduced electricity demand, as energy prices came down but remained above pre-pandemic levels. In 2023, there were also signs of some permanent demand destruction, especially in the energy-intensive chemical and primary metal production sectors. These segments will remain vulnerable to energy price shocks over our outlook period.

Record-breaking electricity generation from low-emissions sources – which includes nuclear and renewables such as solar, wind and hydro – is set to cover all global demand growth over the next three years. Low-emissions sources, which will reduce the role of fossil fuels in producing electricity globally, are forecast to account for almost half of the world’s electricity generation by 2026, up from 39 percent in 2023. Over the next three years, low-emissions generation is set to rise at twice the annual growth rate between 2018 and 2023 – a consequential change, given that the power sector contributes the most to global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions today.

Renewables are set to provide more than one-third of total electricity generation globally by early 2025, overtaking coal. The share of renewables in electricity generation is forecast to rise from 30 percent in 2023 to 37 percent in 2026, with the growth largely supported by the expansion of ever cheaper solar PV. Through this period, renewables are set to more than offset demand growth in advanced economies such as the United States and the European Union, displacing fossil fuels.

At the same time, in China, the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources is expected to meet all additional electricity demand, though the weather and the extent to which the country’s demand growth eases remain key sources of uncertainty for the outlook. The strong expansion in renewable power capacity must also be accompanied by accelerated investment in grids and system flexibility to ensure its smooth integration. 

The rapid growth of renewables, supported by rising nuclear generation, is set to displace global coal-fired generation, which is forecast to fall by an average of 1.7 percent annually through 2026. This follows a 1.6 percent increase in coal-fired output in 2023 amid droughts in India and China that reduced hydropower output and increased coal-fired generation, more than offsetting strong declines in coal-fired generation in the United States and the European Union. 

The major factor that will determine the global outlook is evolving trends in China, where more than half of the world’s coal-fired generation takes place. Coal-fired generation in China is currently on course to experience a slow structural decline, driven by the strong expansion of renewables and growing nuclear generation, as well as moderating economic growth. Despite the commissioning of new plants to boost the security of energy supply, the utilization rate of Chinese coal-fired plants is expected to continue to fall as they are used more flexibly to complement renewables. Nevertheless, coal-fired generation in China will be influenced significantly by the pace of the economy’s rebalancing, hydropower trends, and bottlenecks in integrating renewables into the country’s power system.

Facts:

• Global hydropower generation declined in 2023 due to weather impacts such as droughts, below average rainfall and early snowmelts in numerous regions. Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Türkiye, the United States, and Vietnam, along with other countries, all saw hydropower generation decline.
• Extreme weather events triggered major power outages in 2023 in the United States and India. This underlined the need to boost resilience as weather impacts on power systems increase, with both supply and demand becoming more weather-dependent.
• Electricity demand in India surpassed that of Japan and Korea combined at the end of 2023. Bolstered by a fast-growing economy and increased electrification, India’s electricity demand will rise by an annual average of 6.5 percent over the 2024-2026 period. 
• While China provides the largest share of demand growth in terms of volume, India posts the fastest growth rate out to 2026 among major economies.
• Electricity demand in Japan declined by 3.7 percent in 2023 compared to a 1% increase in 2022. Despite high temperatures boosting cooling demand in the summer, the slowdown in the manufacturing sector and continued energy saving measures exerted strong downwards pressure on electricity consumption.
• Electricity demand in the United States, the world’s second largest consumer behind China, declined by 1.6 percent in 2023, after 2.6 percent growth in 2022. A major contributor to the downturn was the milder weather in 2023 compared to 2022.
• In the European Union, following a 3.1 percent decline in 2022, electricity demand fell by a further 3.2 percent in 2023. We anticipate a return to growth in 2024 of 1.8 percent, assuming a partial recovery in the industry sector given more moderate energy prices and expanding electrification of the transportation and heating sectors.
• Africa’s population will soon represent 20 percent of the world’s population by 2030. This highlights the massive potential and need for additional electricity supply in this region. Our forecast for Africa for the period 2024-2026 anticipates an average annual growth in total electricity demand of 4 percent.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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2023 was a landmark year for global heat, shattering previous records and highlighting the accelerating pace of global warming and climate change. The trend is deeply entrenched and getting worse each year. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred in the past decade.

Earth’s average temperature in 2023 was 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, making it the warmest year since official records were started in 1850.

• Both land and ocean temperatures reached record highs in 2023;
• For the first time ever, global average land temperatures exceeded 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels;
• Global ocean temperatures also exceeded 1°C above pre-industrial levels;
• Several months, including December, set record highs for global surface temperature; and
• Antarctic sea ice hit record low levels in 2023, with eight monthly records for low sea ice.

July 2023 wasn’t just a warm month, it was the hottest month ever recorded in human history, according to multiple agencies including NASA, NOAA, and the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Here are some key facts about July 2023:

• Globally, the average temperature was 2.77°F above the pre-industrial average;
• Land temperatures exceeded 3.6°F above pre-industrial levels for the first time ever; and
• Ocean temperatures also hit record highs.

These records are a stark reminder of the urgency of addressing climate change. Anthropogenic emissions – attributable to human action – are ultimately the main driver of this temperature rise. The consequences are clear and they are tragic. The era of global warming is becoming the era of global boiling. The air is not breathable. The heat is unbearable.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there is a one-in-three chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023, and a 99 percent chance that 2024 will rank among the top five warmest years. Britain’s Meteorological Office warned that this year’s average global temperature could eclipse the critical climate warming benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

The ongoing El Niño is currently in its second year, which typically amplifies global temperatures. Its persistence into spring/summer could significantly impact 2024. Of course, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, which is driving long-term temperature increases, extreme weather and rising sea levels. The impact on food, water, public health, biodiversity and beyond are unfolding and accelerating. While these predictions highlight the potential dangers of a warming planet, it’s crucial to stay informed and engage in actions to mitigate climate change.
 
We need ambitious new national emissions reduction targets from G20 members. We must accelerate a just and equitable transition from fossil fuels to renewables. We must reach net zero electricity by 2035 in developed countries and 2040 elsewhere, while expanding electricity to everyone on earth (which will curb deforestation).

Extreme weather is becoming the new normal. All countries must respond and protect their people from the searing heat, fatal floods, storms, droughts, and raging fires that result.

Countries on the frontlines need help now. We need adaptation investments to save millions of lives from the climate carnage.
 
Promises made on international climate finance must be kept. Developed countries must honor their commitments to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries for climate support and fully replenish the Green Climate Fund.
 
Only two G7 countries – Canada and Germany – have made until now replenishment pledges. More broadly, many banks, investors and other financial actors continue to reward polluters and others who are harming the planet.

Financial institutions must end their fossil fuel lending, underwriting and investments and shift to renewables instead. No more green washing and no more hiding behind antitrust laws to sabotage net zero alliances.
 
We need a course correction in the global financial system to accelerate climate action. We must put a price on carbon and push the multilateral development banks to overhaul their business models to assess climate risk.
 
Multilateral development banks must leverage their funds to mobilize much more private finance at reasonable cost to developing countries — and scaling up their funding to renewables, reforestation, adaptation and loss and damage.

Humanity has unleashed destruction—much of which is irreversible. Children now face seven times as many heat waves, three times as many crop failures and twice as many wildfires as previous generations.

Save the Children forecasts that children in low-income countries and those impacted by poverty will suffer “first and worst,” said Jack Wakefield, the charity’s global policy and advocacy lead on climate change. “We must see urgent action on all fronts to rapidly phase out the use and subsidy of fossil fuels and limit global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – as well as placing children’s rights, voices and needs at the heart of climate finance and loss and damage funding arrangements.”

For More information:

NOAA: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global

NASA: https://climate.nasa.gov/: https://climate.nasa.gov/

Copernicus Climate Change Service: https://climate.copernicus.eu/: https://climate.copernicus.eu/

World Meteorological Organization: https://wmo.int/: https://wmo.int/

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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Indonesia is relocating its capital to a new location in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. Jakarta is facing several challenges, but rising tides and sinking soil will take its toll on this massive city.

Due to uncontrolled groundwater extraction and rising sea levels, parts of the city will be under water by 2050. With more than 30 million residents and a massive footprint, Jakarta is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, leading to congestion, pollution, untreated wastewater and other urban issues. The Indonesian government hopes that relocating the capital will help eliminate some of the pressure and remove the downside of the present location. It might be the first wave of mass migration away from this historic port city.

Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world. In fact, it holds the distinction of being the third-largest island globally. Greenland and New Guinea are the only islands larger. Borneo offers a stunning diversity of landscapes, ranging from lush rainforests teeming with unique wildlife to towering mountains and vast coastlines. This biodiversity and sheer size contribute significantly to the island’s ecological and cultural importance.

Indonesia shares the island of Borneo with Brunei and Malaysia. Brunei is a sultanate located on the north coast. It controls about 1 percent of the island’s land area. Meanwhile, Malaysia controls about 26 percent of the island, while Indonesia claims about 73 percent of Borneo—known as East Kalimantan and West Kalimantan provinces.

Indonesia hopes that establishing the new capital in East Kalimantan will stimulate economic growth in a less developed region of the country.

The new capital, Nusantara, is envisioned as a “forest city” with a focus on sustainability, renewable energy, and smart technologies. It’s about as far north as you can go in Indonesia, which means that it might be a degree or two cooler than Jakarta.

The relocation of Indonesia’s capital is a complex and ambitious project with potential benefits and drawbacks. Critics argue that building a new city will lead to deforestation and threaten endangered species in Borneo. The relocation project also raises concerns about the displacement and potential marginalization of Indigenous communities in the area.

Borneo is one of just two islands in the world that has endangered orangutans. Borneo is home to an incredible diversity of plant and animal life, many of which are found nowhere else on earth. Expanding human populations and economic activity will not help save the island’s rainforests and overall biodiversity. Rainforests play a vital role in storing carbon dioxide and regulating the climate. Deforestation releases this stored carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and climate change.

Unfortunately, the entire island of Borneo has been under extreme pressure from industry for the past 40 years. Mining, logging and agriculture have deforested thousands, if not millions, of acres. Deforestation across Borneo is a major environmental concern, with the island losing a significant portion of its vast rainforests. This has had devastating consequences for the island’s unique biodiversity, indigenous communities, and the global climate.

The expansion of palm oil plantations is a major culprit, driven by the global demand for this vegetable oil used in food, cosmetics, and biofuels. Clearing rainforest for these plantations destroys critical habitat for many species, while releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Hopefully, clearing the forest for a new capital will not define this forest city. Hopefully, Nusantara will be a model in best practices for the world.

The official groundbreaking ceremony for Nusantara took place in March 2022. Construction is ongoing, with initial phases focusing on government buildings and essential infrastructure. The full relocation process is expected to take decades.

Nusantara is located on the east coast of the island of East Kalimantan.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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Cities are home to about 50 percent of the world’s population, but cities generate 80 percent of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, not to mention other forms of pollution. Cities are consuming a disproportionate share of natural resources, as well. Fortunately, many sustainable cities are taking steps to minimize their impacts on the environment and to minimize the threats that natural disasters pose to them. Urban forests are a vital part of the equation. Saving and planting trees strategically offers multiple benefits:

• Reduce Energy Consumption: Strategically placing more trees near residential and commercial properties will help minimize energy use. Trees can help to reduce energy demand for heating and cooling buildings. In the summer, trees provide shade, which can help to keep buildings cooler. In the winter, trees can block cold winds, which can help to keep buildings warmer;
• Carbon Sequestration: Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. This carbon is then stored in the tree’s wood and leaves. Urban forests can store a significant amount of carbon, helping to offset greenhouse gas emissions from other sources. Maximize tree placements along roadways, railways, and other open spaces to help offset carbon dioxide gases, while minimizing the heat-island effect along transportation corridors and in urban areas;
• Reduce Air Pollution: Trees can help to filter air pollution, while producing oxygen. This improves air quality and reduces the risk of respiratory problems for people living in cities;
• Protect Public Health: Studies have shown that living near trees and green spaces offers a number of health benefits, including reduced stress, improved mental health, and a lower risk of chronic diseases; and
• Reduce Heat Island Effect: Urban areas are usually warmer than surrounding rural areas, due to the presence of buildings and other infrastructure. This is known as the urban heat island effect. Trees can help reduce the urban heat island effect by providing shade and releasing water vapor into the air.

In addition, urban forests promote urban agroforestry initiatives, including produce grown in the trees and other crops grown under them. Urban forests also provide habitat for a variety of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, butterflies, and insects. This can help to increase biodiversity in cities and make them more livable for people. Urban forests also provide places for people to gather, socialize, and recreate.

In Los Angeles, California, the city has planted over 1 million trees since 2010. The goal is to plant 9 million trees by 2050. This would create one of the largest urban forests in the world and help absorb 25 percent of the city’s carbon emissions.

In Singapore, the city government has a one million trees movement. The goal is to plant one million trees by 2030. The city has already planted over 500,000 trees, and it is on track to reach its goal. Singapore’s urban forest helps to reduce the city’s temperature and improve air quality.

Medellín, Colombia has planted more than 5 million trees in the last 20 years.

This has helped to reduce the city’s temperature by 2 degrees Celsius and improve air quality. Medellín’s urban forest is now a model for other cities around the world. These are just a few examples of how urban forests are fighting global warming and climate change. As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, urban forests will play an even more important role in mitigating the effects of climate change and making cities more sustainable and livable places.

Read the full story about trees, global warming and climate change.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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July 2023 was the hottest month on record globally. It will likely become the new normal and one that will not retreat for centuries—if ever.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The average global temperature for July 2023 was 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average–the warmest July on record since records began in 1880.

The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month. The month was 0.72°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average for July, and 0.33°C warmer than the previous warmest month, July 2019. The month is estimated to have been around 1.5°C warmer than the average for 1850-1900.

The heat wave in July 2023 was particularly severe in the Arctic, where temperatures were up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above average. This led to widespread melting of sea ice and permafrost, and contributed to the record-breaking heat wave in Siberia. Similar patterns are expanding around the globe, which contributed to the massive wildfires across Canada and the recent wildfire that consumed much of Lahaina on Maui.

The heat wave in July 2023 was also felt in the United States, where many states experienced record-breaking temperatures. In California, the temperature in Death Valley reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous United States.

The record-breaking heat in July 2023 is a sign of the increasing severity of climate change. As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, we can expect to see more extreme heat waves in the future. We will see more mass migration and more insecurity around food and water.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2022 was the hottest year on record globally, with the 10 warmest years on record occurring since 2010. The five warmest months on record also occurred in 2022, including January, February, March, May, and June.

The WMO attributed the record-breaking temperatures to human-caused climate change. The report stated that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere continued to rise in 2022, reaching a new record high. This is causing the planet to warm, leading to more extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires.

Arizona, Florida, Maine and New Mexico all recorded their hottest July on record last month, while Louisiana recorded its second-hottest. 

Scorching heat was also common in Arizona, where the average maximum temperature reached 101.4 F, and the city of Phoenix recorded an average temperature of 102.8 F in July – the hottest month on record for any U.S. city. The hottest day was 6 July, when the global average temperature reached 17.08°C

Contributing to the July heat wave around the globe is unusually high sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Since April, the global average daily SST has remained at record levels.

“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” said World Meteorological Organization’s Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever before. Climate action is not a luxury but a must.”

The record-breaking temperatures last summer had a devastating impact on people and ecosystems around the world. The heat wave in America’s Pacific Northwest killed hundreds of people and caused widespread power outages. In Europe, a heat wave and drought led to wildfires that destroyed forests and homes. Nearly 20,000 people – primarily tourists – were forced to flee hotels on Rhodes, the island worst affected by the fires, in a single day. The operation was described as the biggest evacuation ever carried out in Greece. A state of emergency was declared in some areas of the popular tourist destination earlier this week.

The WMO warned that the planet is on track to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the mid-century, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the current rate. This would have catastrophic consequences for the planet and its people.

The WMO called on governments to take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. The report stated that “we are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now will determine the future of our planet.”

Fossil fuels are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for over 75% of global emissions. When fossil fuels are burned, they release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These gases trap heat, causing the planet to warm.

The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, has concluded that it is extremely likely that human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2010.

The effects of climate change are already being felt around the world. We are seeing more extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires. Sea levels are rising, and glaciers are melting. These changes are having a devastating impact on people and ecosystems around the world.

We need to take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. This means transitioning away from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power. It also means investing in energy efficiency and conservation measures. We need to act now to protect our planet for future generations. The future of our planet depends on it.

Effects of fossil fuels on climate change

Global warming: The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These gases trap heat, causing the planet to warm. This is leading to more extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires.

Sea level rise: As the planet warms, the ice caps and glaciers are melting. This is causing sea levels to rise. This is threatening coastal communities around the world.

Ocean acidification: The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, making it more acidic. This is harming marine life and disrupting the marine food chain.

Air pollution: The burning of fossil fuels releases pollutants into the air, such as particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. These pollutants can cause respiratory problems, heart disease, and cancer.

Climate change refugees: As the effects of climate change become more severe, people will be forced to flee their homes. This is creating a new crisis of climate change refugees.

We need to take urgent action to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and transition to clean energy sources. We also need to invest in adaptation measures to help communities cope with the effects of climate change.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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By John Podesta, Founder and Director, The Center For American Progress

In 2018, the World Bank estimated that three regions (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia) will generate 143 million more climate migrants by 2050. In 2017, 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced, more than at any point in human history.

While it is difficult to estimate, approximately one-third of these (22.5 million to 24 million people) were forced to move by “sudden onset” weather events—flooding, forest fires after droughts, and intensified storms. While the remaining two-thirds of displacements are the results of other humanitarian crises, it is becoming obvious that climate change is contributing to so-called slow onset events such as desertification, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, air pollution, rain pattern shifts and loss of biodiversity. This deterioration will exacerbate many humanitarian crises and may lead to more people being on the move.

Multilateral institutions, development agencies, and international law must do far more to thoroughly examine the challenges of climate change (early efforts, like the World Bank’s 2010 World Development Report on climate change, had little uptake at a time when few thought a climate crisis was around the corner).

Moreover, neither a multilateral strategy nor a legal framework exist to account for climate change as a driver of migration. Whether in terms of limited access to clean water, food scarcity, agricultural degradation, or violent conflict, climate change will intensify these challenges and be a significant push factor in human migration patterns.

There are instances of climate change as the sole factor in migration, climate change is widely recognized as a contributing and exacerbating factor in migration and in conflict.

In South Asia, increasing temperatures, sea level rise, more frequent cyclones, flooding of river systems fed by melting glaciers, and other extreme weather events are exacerbating current internal and international migration patterns. Additionally, rapid economic growth and urbanization are accelerating and magnifying the impact and drivers of climate change—the demand for energy is expected to grow 66 percent by 2040.

Compounding this, many of the expanding urban areas are located in low-lying coastal areas, already threatened by sea level rise. The confluence of these factors leads the World Bank to predict that the collective South Asian economy (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) will lose 1.8 percent of its annual GDP due to climate change by 2050. The New York Times reports that the living conditions of 800 million people could seriously diminish. Diminishing living conditions on this scale and intensity will prompt mass migration—possibly at an unprecedented level.

Northwest Africa is facing rising sea levels, drought, and desertification. These conditions will only add to the already substantial number of seasonal migrants and put added strain on the country of origin, as well as on destination countries and the routes migrants travel. The destabilizing effects of climate change should be of great concern to all those who seek security and stability in the region.

Climate and security experts often cite the impacts of the extreme drought in Syria that preceded the 2011 civil war. The security community also highlights the connection between climate change and terrorism—for instance, the decline of agricultural and pastoral livelihoods has been linked to the effectiveness of financial recruiting strategies by al-Qaida.

The intersection of climate change and migration requires new, nimble, and comprehensive solutions to the multidimensional challenges it creates. Accordingly, the signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change requested that the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change (WIM) develop recommendations for addressing people displaced by climate change. 

Similarly, The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (adopted by 164 countries—not including the U.S.—in Marrakech in December 2018) called on countries to make plans to prevent the need for climate-caused relocation and support those forced to relocate. However, these agreements are neither legally binding nor sufficiently developed to support climate migrants—particularly migrants from South Asia, Central America, Northwest Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

As gradually worsening climate patterns and, even more so, severe weather events, prompt an increase in human mobility, people who choose to move will do so with little legal protection. The current system of international law is not equipped to protect climate migrants, as there are no legally binding agreements obliging countries to support climate migrants.

As gradually worsening climate patterns and, even more so, severe weather events, prompt an increase in human mobility, people who choose to move will do so with little legal protection. The current system of international law is not equipped to protect climate migrants, as there are no legally binding agreements obliging countries to support climate migrants.

While climate migrants who flee unbearable conditions resemble refugees, the legal protections afforded to refugees do not extend to them. In the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations established a system to protect civilians who had been forced from their home countries by political violence. Today, there are almost 20.4 million officially designated refugees under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)—however, there is an additional group of 21.5 million people who flee their homes as a result of sudden onset weather hazards every year.

The UNHCR has thus far refused to grant these people refugee status, instead designating them as “environmental migrants,” in large part because it lacks the resources to address their needs. But with no organized effort to supervise the migrant population, these desperate individuals go where they can, not necessarily where they should. As their numbers grow, it will become increasingly difficult for the international community to ignore this challenge.

As severe climate change displaces more people, the international community may be forced to either redefine “refugees” to include climate migrants or create a new legal category and accompanying institutional framework to protect climate migrants. However, opening that debate in the current political context would be fraught with difficulty. Currently, the nationalist, anti-immigrant, and xenophobic atmosphere in Europe and the U.S. would most likely lead to limiting refugee protections rather than expanding them.

While there are no legally binding international regimes that protect climate migrants, there are voluntary compacts that could be used to support them. Most notably, 193 countries adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which address both migration and climate change.

Several of the 169 targets established by the SDGs lay out general goals that could be used to protect climate migrants. 

The scale and scope of climate change demand dynamic and comprehensive solutions. The U.S. must address climate stress on vulnerable populations specifically, rather than funneling more money into existing programs that operate on the periphery of the growing crisis.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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California has been adjusting to the new normal of drought across the American West for years. It’s also bracing for the most dangerous flood threat in modern history–a flood that could inundate major valleys with water flows hundreds of miles long and tens of miles across.

Motivated by one such flood that occurred in 1862, scientists investigated the phenomenon in 2010. They called it the ArkStorm scenario, reflecting the potential for an event of biblical proportions.

To account for the additional flood-worsening effects of climate change, scientists from UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have completed the first part of ArkStorm 2.0.

“In the future scenario, the storm sequence is bigger in almost every respect,” said Daniel Swain, UCLA climate scientist and co-author of the paper, which is published today in the journal Science Advances. “There’s more rain overall, more intense rainfall on an hourly basis and stronger wind.”

In total, the research projects that end-of-the-century storms will generate 200 percent to 400 percent more runoff in the Sierra Nevada Mountains due to increased precipitation and more precipitation falling as rain, not snow.

The researchers used a combination of new high-resolution weather modeling and existing climate models to compare two extreme scenarios: one that would occur about once per century in the recent historical climate and another in the projected climate of 2081-2100. Both would involve a long series of storms fueled by atmospheric rivers over the course of a month. The paper also simulated how the storms would affect parts of California at a local level.

“There are localized spots that get over 100 liquid-equivalent inches of water in the month,” Swain said, referring to the future scenario. “On 10,000-foot peaks, which are still somewhat below freezing even with warming, you get 20-foot-plus snow accumulations. But once you get down to South Lake Tahoe level and lower in elevation, it’s all rain. There would be much more runoff.”

The increased runoff could lead to devastating landslides and debris flows — particularly in hilly areas burned by wildfires.

The paper, which was co-authored by climate scientist Xingying Huang, found that historical climate change has already doubled the likelihood of such an extreme storm scenario, building on previous UCLA research showing increases in extreme precipitation events and more common major floods in California. The study also found that further large increases in “megastorm” risk are likely with each additional degree of global warming this century.

“Modeling extreme weather behavior is crucial to helping all communities understand flood risk even during periods of drought like the one we’re experiencing right now,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the Califiornia Department of Water Resources, which provided funding for the study. “The department will use this report to identify the risks, seek resources, support the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan, and help educate all Californians so we can understand the risk of flooding in our communities and be prepared.”

With drought and wildfire getting so much attention, Californians may have lost sight of extreme flooding, Swain said. “There is potential for bad wildfires every year in California, but a lot of years go by when there’s no major flood news. People forget about it.”

The state has experienced major floods over the years, but nothing on the scale of the Great Flood of 1862. During that disaster — when no flood management infrastructure was in place — floodwaters stretched up to 300 miles long and as wide as 60 miles across in California’s Central Valley. The state’s population then was about 500,000, compared to nearly 40 million today. Were a similar event to happen again, parts of cities such as Sacramento,

Stockton, Fresno and Los Angeles would be under water even with today’s extensive collection of reservoirs, levees and bypasses. It is estimated that it would be a $1 trillion disaster, larger than any in world history.

Though no flood so large has happened since, climate modeling and the paleoclimate record — including river sediment deposits dating back thousands of years — shows that it typically happened every 100 to 200 years in the pre-climate change era.

The ArkStorm flood is also known as “the Other Big One” after the nickname of an expected major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. But, unlike an earthquake, the ArkStorm would lead to catastrophe across a much larger area.

“Every major population center in California would get hit at once — probably parts of Nevada and other adjacent states, too,” Swain said.

The effects on infrastructure would complicate relief efforts, with major interstate freeways such as the I-5 and I-80 likely shut down for weeks or months, Swain said. Economic and supply chain effects would be felt globally.

The first ArkStorm exercise concluded that it would not be possible to evacuate the 5 to 10 million people who would be displaced by flood waters, even with weeks of notice from meteorologists and climatologists. While it helped inform flood planning in some regions, the exercise was limited due to lack of organized resources and funding.

California has already seen increases in climate-driven drought and record-breaking wildfires, Swain said. With climate change-amplified flooding, ArkStorm 2.0 aims to get ahead of the curve.

Further research and preparations to respond to such a scenario — including advanced flood simulations supported by the California Department of Water Resources — are planned to follow, Swain said.  This will include collaborations with partner agencies including the California Office of Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Researchers next hope to map out where flooding could be worst and inform statewide plans to mitigate it. That could mean letting water out of reservoirs preemptively, allowing water to inundate dedicated floodplains and diverting water away from population centers in other ways.

Read The Full Story About Flooding and Drought In California

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According to a new report, more than 200 shoreline communities around Lake Michigan are at risk from high lake levels and strong storms that could impact industrial facilities and contaminated sites.

Climate change is fueling more extreme Lake Michigan Water levels, along with stronger winds and heavier storms. These conditions exacerbate erosion, beach loss, and damage along the shore. Shoreline communities around the lake have already spent $878 million in just the past two years repairing damages from extreme weather events. Expenses could exceed another $2 billion in the next five years.

Using elevation data prepared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, analysts identified twelve areas where high lake levels and strong storms could impact industrial facilities, contaminated sites, and communities along Lake Michigan. These maps visualize four flood levels from 584 to 589 feet above sea level. The maps provide a useful starting point for risk assessment, spreading awareness, and prioritizing cleanup.

Chicago’s shoreline communities and the built environment have taken a beating from high Lake Michigan water levels whipped up by high winds and waves. 

Climate change is causing more extreme weather events and unprecedented swings in lake water levels. As Professor Drew Gronewold of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability explained, Lake Michigan water levels shifted from a record low monthly average of 576 feet in 2013, to a record high of 582.2 feet in 2020.

While scientists expect global mean sea levels to rise somewhat consistently, the Great Lakes are expected to continue to both rise and fall, fueled by an accelerating “tug of war” between numerous factors. In some years, higher temperatures will increase evaporation resulting in lower lake levels. In many years, lower temperatures and broad ice cover, combined with high levels of precipitation, will cause much higher Lake Michigan waters levels for which the current built environment was not designed.

Residential buildings in Chicago’s north-side Rogers Park and south-side South Shore neighborhoods have been battered by water, wind and waves. Houses on the Chicago suburban North Shore, the Northwest Indiana shoreline, and Western Michigan’s lakeshore likewise have been battered. Beaches up and down the lakefront are being washed away and bluffs eroded. Wastewater treatment plants, toxic dredge dumps and other industrial facilities are vulnerable to damage, flooding and toxic release.

“In terms of climate change, the long-term signal for us in the Great Lakes is wetter and warmer,” Professor Gronewold said. “The practical reality is that we need to rethink the Great Lakes shoreline’s built environment in light of the more extreme water levels.”

Adapting to changing conditions and dealing with threats to the local environment and public health and safety will require fundamental policy shifts, and significant federal, state and local financial investments. Policymakers must include critical recommendations from affected communities. Possible action steps include:

• Reassess infrastructure risks and vulnerabilities in light of higher-than-planned-for Lake Michigan water levels. Too many existing toxic sites – landfills, coal ash storage ponds, and industrial facilities – along the shoreline were built based on outdated water level estimates; they weren’t designed to withstand now-projected higher water levels and flooding. Given climate-related predictions of more extreme lake levels, cleaning up toxic sites is even more important. At a minimum, let’s not make existing problems worse. For example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed expanding the Confined Disposal Facility, a hazardous waste landfill on Chicago’s Southeast Side right along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Communities should likewise assess the impacts on marinas, water intake pipes and wildlife when water levels are low. Assuring that drinking water intake pipes are safe under both extremely high and low lake water levels is critical. 

• Update and redesign local land use planning and zoning standards based on today’s water level realities rather than yesterday’s news. Most communities’ planning, zoning and development laws and practices are outdated and based on historic Lake Michigan levels instead of the increasingly more extreme water levels.

• Invest in nature-based solutions to strengthen shoreline resilience, including restoring wetlands to store water and reduce some pressure by absorbing overflow from Lake Michigan, while also providing more wildlife habitat.  Potentially use nearby rivers and lakes to act as reservoirs for high lake water.

• Consider new environmental engineering and water management approaches. Green infrastructure, such as permeable pavers, can allow water to directly enter the groundwater, rather than overwhelming city drainage systems, flooding streets and flowing into the lake. Policymakers should explore and reasonably use “all of the water management tools in the toolbox.” 

• Effectively deploy the recent influx of federal funds, including the additional $1 billion for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, and the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provides greatly increased funding to address wastewater and storm water threats, and investments in clean drinking water programs.

Greener Cities is a division of Crossbow Communications. Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

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