WUF 13 The Caspian in Retreat : Climate-Resilient Cities and Communities across the Caspian Region

How climate change, urbanisation and a shortage of money are forcing the region to reinvent the cities of the future

Baku has always had a taste for grand symbolism. This week, the symbol was rain. As global officials, bankers and urban planners gathered in the Azerbaijani capital to discuss climate resilience, the city was hit by torrential downpours that, according to forum participants, exceeded annual rainfall levels hundreds of times over. Nature itself seemed to have decided to moderate the panel on climate adaptation.

The central conclusion of the meeting was straightforward: the Caspian region is entering an era in which climate change is no longer merely an environmental issue, but a question of economics, infrastructure and political stability.

Al-Karim Samadzadeh, Azerbaijan’s First Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, described the situation in almost geopolitical terms.

“The decline in the water level of the Caspian Sea has already become a serious environmental threat,” he said, stressing that the issue affects not only nature, but also logistics, fisheries, tourism and the lives of millions of people. For Azerbaijan, the Caspian is “not only a strategic resource, but also an ecological heritage.”

Yet while national governments still frame the issue in terms of threats, international organisations increasingly speak the language of systemic crisis.

Elisabeth Mrema, Deputy Executive Director of UNEP, noted that the level of the Caspian is falling by roughly six centimetres a year. In her view, this is not solely the result of climate change. Urbanisation, deforestation and land degradation are themselves intensifying climatic effects. “We cannot solve climate problems without solving other environmental problems,” she argued.

Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, pushed the discussion into even more uncomfortable territory: the problem is not that cities are growing, but how they are growing. The world, she observed, is expanding its cities faster than its population is increasing.

“Land is a finite resource,” she reminded the audience, raising a question that is becoming increasingly central to global climate policy: should megacities continue sprawling outward indefinitely?

Throughout the discussion, one idea repeatedly surfaced: humanity has treated ecology for too long as a decorative element of urban development. Mrema put it bluntly. Environmental regulations and building standards already exist; the problem lies in enforcing them. “Too often, we remember climate only after the building has already been constructed,” she said.

The logic applies particularly strongly to Baku, a city simultaneously experiencing a construction boom and mounting climate pressure. After the recent floods, the conversation about urban resilience ceased to be theoretical. Rossbach admitted that nobody had designed cities for such extreme weather scenarios. Yet that, increasingly, is the new reality: infrastructure must now withstand events that until recently were considered unimaginable.

The financial dimension of the crisis proved equally dramatic. Norio Saito of the Asian Development Bank warned that countries across Central Asia and the South Caucasus are confronting ageing water infrastructure, enormous water losses and rising climate risks.

“Climate and water risks are rising faster than our readiness to respond,” he noted.

ADB is attempting to answer the problem with money. The bank is promoting a ten-year, $3.5bn initiative called “Glaciers to Farms”, aimed at helping regional states adapt to glacial melt and water scarcity. Yet even international lenders acknowledge that infrastructure alone is insufficient. What is needed are institutions, governance and the ability of cities to prepare viable projects of their own.

At this point, the discussion unexpectedly turned toward migration.

Rania Sharcher of the International Organisation for Migration reminded participants that the climate crisis is, above all, a human crisis. According to figures she cited, nearly 30m people were displaced by climate and environmental disasters in a single year alone.

“Every movement has a story behind it,” she said.

The problem, she explained, is that people are leaving rural areas for cities that are themselves unprepared for rapid population inflows. Water becomes scarce, infrastructure overloaded, and local authorities often lack both the data and the investment plans necessary to access climate finance.

“Sixty to seventy percent of national adaptation plans remain simply plans,” she admitted.

One response to this challenge is a new Adaptation Fund project in Azerbaijan, prepared over nearly seven years by UN-Habitat, UNEP and IOM. Katja Schäfer, Inter-Regional Advisor · UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) of UN-Habitat described it as an effort to move climate policy “from data to policy, and from policy to action.”

The project includes a green corridor in Baku along a former railway line, early-warning systems for floods, and infrastructure for rainwater harvesting. Its goal is not merely to reduce climate risks, but also to create public spaces, support small businesses and reconnect residents with the Caspian coastline.

Runze Wang, presenting the initiative, described it as more than a beautification exercise. The abandoned railway corridor cutting through Baku, he explained, is intended to become a multifunctional green space designed to reduce urban heat, improve mobility and reconnect communities with the waterfront. The project, he argued, is meant to serve as a demonstration of how climate finance can produce visible, practical results rather than endless strategies and reports.

Here lies a certain irony. The Caspian Sea, for centuries a symbol of trade and oil wealth, is now becoming a laboratory for climate adaptation. A region long shaped by hydrocarbons is being forced to learn how to build cities less dependent on them.

And yet behind the polished diplomacy of the forum there was an unmistakable sense of anxiety. Participants spoke of “green corridors”, “integrated coastal management” and “nature-based solutions”.

But between the lines another message could be heard: time is running short.

When sea levels fall by centimetres every year, climate change ceases to be about the future. It becomes a matter of urban planning.