Globalisation and climate change in Asia: the urban health impact

Asia's economic development successes will create new policy areas to address, as the advances made through globalisation create greater climate change challenges, particularly the impact on urban health. Poverty eradication and higher standards of living both increase demand on resources. Globalisation increases inequalities and those who are currently the losers will carry the greatest burden of the costs in the form of the negative effects of climate change and the humanitarian crises that will ensue. Of four major climate change challenges affecting the environment and health, two—urban air pollution and waste management—can be mitigated by policy change and technological innovation if sufficient resources are allocated. Because of the urban bias in the development process, these challenges will probably register on policy makers' agenda. The second two major challenges—floods and drought—are less amenable to policy and technological solutions: many humanitarian emergency challenges lie ahead. This article describes the widely varying impact of both globalisation and climate change across Asia. The greatest losers are those who flee one marginal location, the arid inland areas, only to settle in another marginal location in the flood prone coastal slums. Effective preparation is required, and an effective response when subsequent humanitarian crises occur.