BANGKOK: Asian nations must act quickly to protect their cities from flooding
and other natural disasters as rapid urbanisation raises environmental risks,
the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday.
Major investment in
infrastructure and smarter urban planning -- focused on green growth -- are the
only routes to curbing the impact of such catastrophes as the region's
metropolises expand, an ADB report said.
"Asia has seen unprecedented
urban population growth, but this has been accompanied by immense stress on the
environment," said ADB chief economist Changyong Rhee.
"The challenge now is to put
in place policies which will reverse that trend and facilitate the development
of green technology and green urbanisation," he added.
"The (urbanisation) trend will
continue at an enormously fast speed... Asian cities have very little time to
prepare and build proper infrastructure."
Deadly floods which submerged 80
percent of Manila last week, the deluge that killed dozens in the Chinese
capital in July and the inundation of parts of Bangkok last year were warning
signs that major Asian cities cannot cope with the challenges of climate change
and protect their populations, the ADB said.
The situation is likely to
worsen, the poverty-fighting bank warned, as Asian economies grow and hundreds
of millions of people flock to "megacities" with populations of 10
million or more.
Asia's cities lured more than a
billion new residents between 1980 and 2010 and will draw a billion more by
2040, according to ADB research, with more than half of the world's megacities
located in the region.
As a result soaring pollution,
crime, social inequality and slum living are heaping pressure on existing
infrastructure, hastening the need for bold responses from city authorities,
the Manila-based organisation said.
Asia has "spent lots of
money on infrastructure, but that's not enough to protect people", Rhee
said.
"We focus on quantity... but
do not have the luxury to spend money on quality," he added, citing the
building of roads without adequate drainage as an example of flawed
development.
The report said policy-makers
could narrow that gap by introducing congestion charging, carbon levies and
collecting more taxes to invest in green infrastructure including public
transport.
It also expressed hope the region
would take advantage of new technologies which could lead to greener cities
that mitigate the impact of climate change.
- AFP/ir
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