This paper considers the implications of population growth and urbanization for climate change. It emphasizes that it is not the growth in (urban or rural) populations that drives the growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but rather, the growth in consumers and in their levels of consumption.

Many of the world's largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean.

In recent years, the large scale urbanization, industrialisation and associated environmental alteration and its impact on biodiversity pose a threat to human existence through basic necessities, recreation and the ecological functions.