Charity urges aid for sinking cities
Governments must provide "major" investment in flood risk reduction to save coastal cities around the world, a charity said Friday, as rising seas and sinking urban areas pose unprecedented threats to millions of homes.
Cities such as Jakarta which is sinking 25 centimeters (0.8 feet) each year Bangkok, Houston and Shanghai risk being inundated within decades as a mixture of poor planning, mega storms and higher tides wreaks havoc.
London-based charity Christian Aid studied eight coastal cities around the world that are sinking, potentially compounding the misery that rising sea levels will inflict on inhabitants.
"The impacts of climate change will be seen across the world and as you saw this summer we had a very warm northern hemisphere, very abnormally so," Kat Kramer, global climate lead at Christian Aid, told AFP.
"Many of the big cities in the developing world are extraordinarily vulnerable to climate change which is why it's very important that they are given support to adapt and build resilience.
