Durban, South Africa is a city of immense beauty. It is also a city with deep environmental scars caused by industrial giants and an insensitive government. As the host city for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference - COP 17 - Durban will be at the center of the world's climate negotiations. This book takes the reader on a journey from Durban's apartheid roots to its somewhat jaded present, passing cultural icons and political battles while narrating socio-economic and environmental conflict and the reinvention of the city's tradition of social protest. All this creates a context from which the reader can interpret the city's hosting of the COP 17. The book includes the reflections of critical political ecologists, socialists, political economists, geographers, and environmental activists on Durban's political ecology, global climate policy, and COP politics. In this context, it can be understood why the COP 17 represents a vast climate gamble. Will carbon trading solve the Earth's climate crisis? The book looks at the environmental injustices the Earth will have to endure in the face of the demise of the Kyoto protocol, and it critically examines COP 17's faith in finding market solutions for market problems while gambling with the Earth's future.

This volume brings together, for the first time, a wide-ranging and detailed body of information identifying and assessing risk, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in urban centres in low- and middle-income countries. Framed by an overview of the main possibilities and constraints for adaptation, the contributors examine the implications of climate change for cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and propose innovative agendas for adaptation. The book should be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and academics who face the challenge of addressing climate change vulnerability and adaptation in urban centres throughout the global South. Published with E&U and International Institute for Environment and Development