Environment Cities Across a Century of Blazing Heat: The Map of Fifty Degrees, the Aging North, and a World Shaped by Migration 2019-2025.

Environment Cities Across a Century of Blazing Heat: The Map of Fifty Degrees, the Aging North, and a World Shaped by Migration 2019-2025.

Global warming has accelerated, and 2024 was the warmest year on record. Fifty-degree heat waves, droughts, and storm surges hit the Global South, shaking the foundations of agriculture and water. Meanwhile, even with relatively modest average temperature increases in the developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere, the aging of the population and the shortage of labor will continue, and the players in adaptation investments will thin out. Sea level rise will accelerate, and low-lying coastal areas and deltas will be forced to deal with overtopping and salinity. Cities will need to reconfigure their buildings, power grids, ways of working, and public spaces based on heat resistance, water conservation, and cooling. On the coast, retreat and relocation, and inland, the development of receiving cities will be the practical measures. Migration is not an exception, but a structural factor of the 21st century. Housing, employment, transportation, water and cooling safety nets,
and fair institutional design will make the difference between success and failure. New urban planning that combines adaptation to the environmental crisis and frontal design of human mobility is the real safe zone.