PHOTO GALLERY: 10 cities at risk from Climate Change

Disaster risk has become an acute and increasing problem in urban areas, and while work has been done to protect cities from climate change, much more is left to do.

While the 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction found mortality risk from floods and tropical cyclones to be decreasing it also found vulnerability to hazards to be rapidly increasing in Europe, and generically in developed countries.

Economic loss risk in OECD countries is rising faster than GDP per capita – risk of losing wealth in weather-related disasters is increasing faster than wealth is being created.

This will be the topic discussed at this week’s ‘Building cities’ resilience to disasters’ conference organised by United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR), in Venice.