268 ■ CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
from taxing energy, to compensate local governments hard hit by high energy
bills. Th is is to protect the fi nancial integrity of local governments and to ensure
reasonable service delivery.
Climate change also has broader economic implications for cities, a few
of which are addressed by other papers in this section. With respect to eco-
nomic strategy, Zhang asks in her paper “Does Climate Change Make Indus-
trialization an Obsolete Development Strategy for Cities in the South?”
whether industrialization still represents a viable development strategy in
the context of climate change. Th rough considering the development expe-
riences of Shanghai, Mumbai, and Mexico City, Zhang argues that climate
change makes industrialization an even more important strategy than before.
Nonetheless, for the sake of local and national prosperity, as well as the global
sustainability, it is critical that developing cities decarbonize their indus-
tries. Zhang suggests that the experience of Shanghai shows that this can be
achieved. In “Th e Price of Climate,” Cavailhès and others demonstrate that
economic benefi ts to climate change may be found, albeit in an industrialized
country context. Th e authors use a hedonic price method to study consumer
preferences in the face of climate change in France. Although very hot days
are not desirable, the research shows that French households value warmer
temperatures. Gross domestic product is calculated to rise by about 1 percent
for a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature.
Th e research fi ndings presented here and discussed in the symposium demon-
strate the interest of the research community and the rapid pace of production
of new insights. At the same time, the symposium also revealed numerous areas
where further work is required to strengthen diagnosis and policies. As men-
tioned in the introduction, the areas where most urgent research is required
include adaptation in general, economic and social analysis broadly, and the
specifi c needs and circumstances of developing country cities. Meanwhile,
despite considerable uncertainty on the specifi c long-term consequences of a
changing climate in any particular city, it is important to move forward with
the current state of knowledge. Cities need to determine how best to mitigate
GHG emissions in their own context—in the context of national and interna-
tional policies—and how best to respond and adapt to a changing climate. It
is important for knowledge and research insights to be translated into useful
policy-making tools, which we hope will follow from the 5th Urban Research
Symposium.