Cities worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to a range of climate hazards. Many already face severe impacts, with threats such as flooding, extreme heat, drought, and wildfires becoming more frequent.
Key takeaways
- Immediate climate threats are a reality. Many cities worldwide are already experiencing severe climate impacts.
- Valencia is taking action. The city is actively working on both mitigation and adaptation, with ongoing projects to reduce emissions and prepare for future climate challenges.
- Long-term challenges remain. Coastal cities like Valencia face significant, complex, long-term risks, particularly from sea level rise.
Extreme weather events, including storms, heatwaves, and flooding have caused up to 145,000 deaths in Europe over the past 40 years, with extreme heat accounting for over 85% of fatalities, according to the European Environment Agency. In the same period, economic losses from climate disasters have reached nearly 500 billion euros.
Valencia, a coastal city in Spain, is one of the cities facing rising sea levels, extreme heat, and intensifying storms. In 2024, a prolonged drought strained water supplies and increased wildfire risks. Later that same year, severe floods devastated parts of the province.
“This is not about projections anymore, but a matter of actually observing the impacts,” says Emilio Servera, European Projects Officer at València Clima i Energia, a public foundation implementing climate mitigation and adaptation projects.
This is not about projections anymore, but a matter of actually observing the impacts.
Emilio Servera - European Projects Officer at València Clima i Energia
In the past few years, Valencia has seen more and more heatwaves, ‘tropical nights’, and droughts. In 2023, temperatures hit a record high of 44.5°C.
Active mitigation and adaptation work
Valencia has been actively working on climate change mitigation for decades. Its yearly emissions inventories show that approximately 35–45% of its greenhouse gas emissions come from the mobility sector, followed by electricity consumption, and natural gas in residential and tertiary buildings.
“Based on that diagnosis, Valencia has committed to advance towards climate-neutrality within its Climate Mission Valencia 2030. A series of ambitious projects are being implemented in domains such as mobility, energy, urban planning, housing, sustainable tourism, and re-naturalisation,” says Alejandro Gómez, Coordinator of European Projects and Urban Strategies, at Valencia Clima i Energia.
In recent years, the city has also doubled down on its adaptation efforts, including expanding green areas, creating urban green spaces to combat heat island effects, and increasing urban tree canopy to provide shade and improve air quality.
Alongside this, the city has implemented water conservation measures and invested in infrastructure to manage stormwater and prevent flooding. This infrastructure helps to mitigate the immediate consequences of climate change while also providing long-term benefits for both residents and the environment.
Future risks
Coastal cities like Valencia face looming long-term challenges, such as sea level rise. This increases the risk of coastal erosion, flooding, and saltwater intrusion, threatening infrastructure, freshwater supplies, and biodiversity.
In turn, these could lead to significant economic costs, the displacement of populations, and disruptions to tourism. This highlights the urgent need for adaptive measures in vulnerable coastal cities.
“Adaptation to sea level rise is a huge challenge which we are currently putting aside as we are not clear on what exactly needs to be done. This is clearly a long-term challenge that cities like ours will need to tackle by setting up robust adaptation measures,” says Servera.
Without adaptation, the vast majority of low-lying islands, coasts, and communities face substantial risk from these hazards. To mitigate these challenges, cities are implementing various adaptation strategies, such as building coastal defences, restoring natural barriers, improving drainage systems, and implementing spatial land use strategies, according to the IPCC.