Conclusion A tendency to treat urbanization as a driver of climate change—and of mal-adaptation— diverts attention from the variety of forms urbanization can take and the ways it can become a means of addressing the risks of climate change. Thus, for example, compact urban settlement, suitable to efficient public transport, can both reduce emissions and prevent development from sprawling over flood prone areas. In addition, a tendency to assume that measures that reduce climate risks are inherently pro-poor diverts attention from the range of different measures and policy regimes that can be justified in terms of climate change, some of whose consequences could greatly increase poverty and inequality. Thus, for example, carbon-related standards could become a means of excluding aspiring low-income residents from formal settlements, while prohibitions on settling flood plains could be used to justify harsh evictions of the residents of informal settlements. While urbanization can contribute to both climate change mitigation and adaptation, it can only achieve this equitably with a far more proactive approach to rural-urban migration and urban expansion than now prevails. This is not an issue of shifting the balance between markets and planning, that obsession of 20th century geo-politics that still plagues us today. Nicholas Stern (2007) has described climate change as “the greatest market failure the world has ever seen”. After the debacle of the Copenhagen Conference of Parties in 2009, it is tempting to predict that it will also become “the greatest government failure the world has ever seen”. Yet, to address the challenges described in this chapter will clearly require better markets, better planning and, just as important, a transformation in the politics of place.
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