MegaCity Fourteen

The world's 100 most populous cities are responsible for around one-fifth of the world's carbon emissions. The MIT Technology Review argues that if we want to tackle global heating we must address the carbon emissions of the world's largest cities. In fact they say by reducing the emissions in just a few of the wealthy megacities in the northern hemisphere we can go a long way to slowing down or halting climate change.

In How Megacities Could Lead the Fight Against Climate Change MIT Technology Review has created a scrollytelling story map which looks at the growth of megacities around the world and visualizes the carbon footprint of the world's most populous cities. Megacities are cities with a population of at least 10 million. There are currently 34 megacities around the world. The United Nations says that by 2035 there will be 14 more.

The MIT story map shows how the megacities in the northern hemisphere have a far larger carbon footprint per capita than those in the south. However it is the poorer southern megacities who will be less able to cope with the effects of climate change. The richer megacities will also be effected by climate change but have more money to pay the costs of climate change. They also have the resources to begin the fight against climate change. 

The MIT Tecnology Review argues that the "concentration of wealth and technology" in rich megacitties means that they are in a unique position to lead the way in combating climate change. Because these megacities are responsible for such a large percentage of the world's carbon emissions they could also have a huge impact in reducing the global carbon footprint.