Topic: climate-change

London has one of the world’s most innovative and biggest low-emission zones: Currently, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) covers 380 km². By the end of August 2023, the ULEZ will be expanded to cover all boroughs of London. Learn more about what this means for the smart city.

As Europe’s temperatures in summer 2023 set yet another terrible record as the highest summer on record, even the last sceptics are starting to understand the urgency of the climate crisis. In a smart city, heat cannot be prevented, but it can be dealt with much better – what could smart cities do to increase their resilience to future heatwaves?

Climate change is currently showing on of its harshest side. Europe is groaning under the heat and further droughts in succession. We took a look at Spain as an example. What is the country doing to defy the challenges of climate change? How will it maintain the quality of life for its citizens despite major heat waves? How are Spanish cities dealing with rising populations and air pollution?
In this article, you'll gain insight into how Spain is committing to sustainable development and what measures the country is taking.

Climate change is a very clear and present danger. Though the term usually conjures up images of melting ice sheets and dying forests, our cities are also particularly vulnerable and also among the main contributors to rising CO2 emissions. But what about the climate resilience of our cities?

Currently, 50% of the world’s population lives in cities. That percentage is expected to rise to 70% by 2050. How do cities prepare for climate change?

In the animated film Rango, life-threatening heat plays a role in the story. In an opening scene, the protagonist staggers through a desert while oppressive heat radiates from the barren ground and a band sings the desert and death are the closest of friends.

In the real world, a desert is not the only place with dangerous heat levels. Read more about how heatwave strategies work in smart cities. We picked three well known cities in the Unites States and show how they respond to extreme heat waves.

There were an estimated 47 megacities in existence in 2017, and the majority were located in Asia. The region is facing urbanization on a scale far beyond that of other regions, with an estimated 1.1 billion moving into Asian cities in the next 20 years. Many Asian countries are also in areas that are prone to extreme weather patterns or natural disasters, and this is only becoming more of a problem with climate change. Cities across the continent urgently need to prepare for serious population growth, and the strain it will place on their public services, and the risks that environmental changes pose. For this reason, becoming more resilient and ‘smarter’ is inevitably at the top of most Asian cities’ political agendas. In this article we are going to explore some of the Asian cities investing in becoming smarter and more sustainable in order to make their citizens safer and happier.