The window is closing’: How liveable will Brussels be if global warming continues?
The need to limit global warming is growing increasingly urgent in urban areas, which are prone to more extreme heatwaves and less resilient to flooding. Remaining on the current trajectory will make life significantly less bearable for urbanites – in Brussels too.
Worldwide, cities account for over 70% of global CO2 emissions, as well as having high pollution levels that impact the immediate environment significantly. On top of this, they are much more vulnerable to weather-related extreme events, Rafiq Hamdi, warns Senior Researcher at the Royal Meteorological Insitute (RMI).
“For cities the situation is different,” he told The Brussels Times. The 2015 Paris Agreement sets out to limit global warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with the aim of keeping it below 1.5°C. But this has long been surpassed in many cities. “In Brussels we are already at 2°C warming compared to the reference period 1850-1900.” Meanwhile in London, human-driven causes contributing to climate change resulted in 3.2°C warming.
“Even with drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, global warming of 1.5°C will be exceeded by 2100. This will warm Brussels by 3.6 to 4°C.” This will have major repercussions on people and life in the city.
