Professor Richard Dawson, Director of the Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research named to the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) – a team of international climate scientists pledged to help cities.

Professor Richard Dawson has been named a key member of an international effort by top climate scientists to help cities around the world address the causes and consequences of climate change, according to Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York City. Rosenzweig is a founder of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN). Richard Dawson is a member of the Network, andalso sits on the Steering Group. The UCCRN includes a group of approximately 500 researchers in cities located throughout the world.

More than half of the world’s population now lives in urban centres, many of them located in coastal or delta areas. Because of topography and population density, cities are disproportionately vulnerable to weather extremes like flooding from storm surges and heat waves. Cities are important economic engines, promoting economic development and providing jobs that support their own residents as well as large numbers of families outside city boundaries. They are also a source of some of the most innovative efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. In addition, says Rosenzweig, “Cities, not central national governments, already lead the action on responding to climate change. Our job is to help by providing the strongest possible physical and social science information and state-of-the-art knowledge so cities can prepare for rising temperatures and changing patterns of extreme weather events, and soften their impacts when they hit.”

Richard Dawson is a member of the expert team that will produce an assessment on the impacts and vulnerabilities in cities and their infrastructure, but also the mechanisms available to reduce these risks and their greenhouse gas emissions. The work is part of a larger effort by UCCRN to produce a resource for guiding cities in their response to climate change. The Second UCCRN Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3-2) will be published in 2015 and will cover a range of issues, from urban health to food to water and energy systems, transportation, economics and private finance, and governance. This will be the second major Assessment Report. City mayors praised the first, published in 2011, as a practical, action-oriented resource.