Climate Change and Where to Live: Which Cities Will Still Be Liveable in 2040?

Imagine you are a parent in Karachi in late May. It is 47°C outside. The power cuts out at 2 pm, and the air conditioner dies with it. Your youngest has been stuck indoors for a week because the air is too bad for the playground. The water tanker is late again.

You check the forecast. Next week looks the same. Next year will probably be worse.

So you start to ask a question many parents in Lagos, Cairo, Manila and Mumbai are asking quietly. Where will my children grow up? And will that place still be pleasant to live in when they are my age?

The short answer: The cities most likely to stay liveable through 2040 are in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the UK and Germany. Calgary, Vancouver, Melbourne, Auckland and Edinburgh lead our list. The steepest declines are projected for Karachi, Cairo, Mumbai, Manila, Lagos and Dhaka, from more extreme heat, worse floods and shrinking water. The biggest difference is not the weather. It is how much money a city spends to protect people from it.

This guide draws on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal, the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) index, and city-level climate risk assessments. If you are already weighing a move, read it next to The True Cost of Migrating Abroad. Climate is now one of the costs, even if it never appears on your budget.

How we judge a city's climate future

No single number tells the whole story. These five factors together give a fair picture of how livable a city will be.

The last one is the factor most people miss. Think of two houses in the same storm. One has a strong roof and good drains. The other has a leaking roof and a blocked gutter. Same rain, very different night. Cities work the same way. Two cities can warm by the same amount and feel completely different to live in, because one can afford to adapt and the other cannot.

The cities facing the hardest decline

Let us start with the hard numbers.

Heat stress: 2026 vs. 2040

The last column matters most. A wet-bulb temperature of 35°C is the point where your body can no longer cool itself by sweating. Think of sweat as your body's own air conditioner. At a wet-bulb of 35°C, the air is so hot and humid that the air conditioner stops working. Long exposure becomes fatal, however fit you are and however much water you drink. Manila is projected to have 22 to 30 such days a year by 2040. Mumbai faces 18 to 25. Dhaka could see up to 32.

These are middle-of-the-road projections, under the IPCC's SSP2-4.5 pathway. In that scenario, global emissions fall somewhat, roughly where current policies pointed as of 2026. The high-emissions pathway (SSP5-8.5) is much worse. These figures assume the world does moderately well.

Flood risk

Lagos is sinking. Large parts of the city sit on a lagoon at or below sea level, and pumping groundwater makes the land sink faster. The World Bank projects annual flood damage could roughly triple to $12.5 billion by 2040. Middle-class areas without the drains of Ikoyi or Banana Island pay the most. The 2024 and 2025 flood seasons across Nigeria, which displaced hundreds of thousands, were a preview.

Manila faces two threats at once: stronger typhoons on top of rising seas. The Philippines already gets around 20 tropical cyclones a year. Models say storms will grow more intense even if their number stays the same. That means more rain, higher storm surges and longer recovery. For a first-hand view of leaving this region, read A Philippine Nurse Abroad: A Real Story.

Water: the slow crisis

The United Nations calls it water stress below 1,700 m³ per person per year, scarcity below 1,000 m³, and absolute scarcity below 500 m³. Cairo is already in absolute scarcity. It depends almost fully on the Nile, and the river's flow is contested upstream by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. By 2040, Karachi and Delhi are both projected to cross the scarcity line.

Compare that with Canada. The average Canadian has access to roughly 80,000 m³ of renewable freshwater a year. That is more than 200 times what a Cairo resident is projected to have in 2040. Water shortage does not arrive with a bang. It arrives as low pressure in the tap, a rationing timetable, and salt slowly creeping into coastal wells.

The cities that will stay liveable

Now the other side. Several cities in rich countries, often the same countries with strong economies, are projected to stay very liveable through 2040 and beyond.

Top 20 liveable cities for 2040

*Dubai's water score comes from desalination, not nature. The UAE spends roughly $4 billion a year on desalination to make up for having almost no natural freshwater. That safety is real, but it is bought. It depends on steady energy and money, so Dubai is not a like-for-like climate haven.

Canada has five cities in the top 15. That is no accident. Canada holds around 20% of the world's surface freshwater, its northern location softens the worst heat, and it keeps investing in climate-proof infrastructure. If Canada is on your list, read Canada Express Entry: A Guide for People from Developing Countries and our Canada arrival guide.

Australia also has five cities, even though it is famous for heat and drought. The reason is investment: water recycling, desalination, bushfire management and heat-smart city design. Melbourne built a large desalination plant after the Millennium Drought, so a big share of its water no longer depends on rain.

New Zealand is the quiet winner. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch face little heat stress, have excellent water, and only moderate flood risk. But its isolation and selective immigration system also make it one of the harder places to reach.

Your city vs. their city: four direct comparisons

This is where it gets personal. If you live in one of the first cities and are thinking about one of the second, here is how their futures compare.

Lagos vs. Toronto

Cairo vs. Melbourne

Manila vs. Auckland

Karachi vs. Calgary

Look at the last row of that final table. Calgary spends around $410 per resident each year on adaptation: storm drains, flood barriers, heat-safe buildings and emergency services. Karachi spends about $5. That is 80 times more.

What does that money buy you? Air conditioning that does not lose power. Tap water you never think about. Roads that drain instead of flood. None of it makes the news. All of it changes every ordinary day.

What climate does to your family's health

Climate change is also a health crisis, and it does not hit everyone equally.

Karachi loses over 3,200 people to heat each year. That figure is projected to reach roughly 5,500 by 2040 as wet-bulb days rise. Mumbai loses more than 4,100. Karachi's child asthma rate is 21.3%, largely because of air quality. In Calgary it is 7.4%.

For parents, this is daily maths. Can the children play outside this week? Does the water need boiling? What is the walk to school doing to their lungs? It is one of the least discussed reasons families leave, and one of the strongest. We explore it in Raising Children Abroad: Africa vs. Europe.

The hidden climate tax on your salary

Climate change also takes money out of your pocket, even if you earn well.

Yearly climate costs for a middle-class family of four

A middle-class family in Lagos pays an invisible "climate tax" of roughly $8,660 a year. That covers generator fuel, clean water, air purifiers and income lost on extreme heat days. The same family in Auckland pays about $280.

The gap is $8,380 a year. Over a decade, that is roughly $83,800. What would you do with that money? School fees. Savings. A home. Instead, it goes on coping. It is a close cousin of the hidden tax of infrastructure failures: money that leaves your household and builds nothing.

Where each city is heading to 2050

Climate trends cannot be reversed within a human planning lifetime. Even in the best emissions scenarios, the warming already locked in means Karachi, Lagos and Manila will be hotter, wetter and drier by 2040. The only question is how much.

By 2050, Calgary is projected at 8.7, almost unchanged. Karachi is projected to fall to 2.6, where daily life becomes a constant fight with heat, water and floods.

If you are making a 10-to-20-year plan for your career and family, this matters. Where you live is no longer only a lifestyle choice. It is a money, health and safety decision that adds up over decades.

How to weigh climate in your move

Climate should sit next to the usual migration questions, not replace them. Picture it like buying a house. You would not choose one only for the view, but you would never buy one on a flood plain without knowing.

• Look at the trend, not today's weather. For a permanent move, read the 2040 and 2050 columns. A city that is uncomfortable now but falling fast is a worse bet than one that is warm but stable.
• Look at adaptation money, not just temperature. A rich city that warms feels far better than a poor city that warms by the same amount. Spending per person is a rough but honest guide.
• Check water before heat. Heat gets the headlines. Water shortage is slower, harder to escape and harder to fix. Cairo's main problem is water, not temperature.
• Choose a country, not one city. Climate resilience is mostly national: freshwater, latitude, institutions, budgets. A resilient country usually gives you several good city options.
• Check you can actually get in. The most resilient places (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) also run selective, points-based systems. A safe climate with no visa route is not a plan.

There is an uncomfortable pattern in the data. Many of the most climate-resilient cities are in the same countries with the strongest economies, the best healthcare and the most active skilled-migration programmes. That is not chance. The same strong institutions that pay for flood walls also build good jobs.

Frequently asked questions

Is any major city truly "climate-proof" through 2040?

No. Every city in our top 20 shows some decline by 2050. The difference is how much, and how well it can adapt. Calgary, Auckland and Vancouver are projected to slip only slightly from a high starting point, and they have the money to manage it. "Resilient" is a more honest word than "safe".

Should I choose a destination on climate alone?

No. Visa options, jobs, cost of living, community and healthcare all matter. Shortlist countries that do well across several of these, then use climate as a tie-breaker or a long-term test. A climate haven you cannot legally move to, or find work in, is not a real option.

How reliable are 2040 climate projections?

The direction is very well established: the vulnerable cities here will be hotter, more flood-prone and more water-stressed. The exact numbers depend on the world's emissions path. Treat the figures here as central estimates under a moderate (SSP2-4.5) scenario. The ranking of cities is much more reliable than any single decimal.

Australia and the UAE are already hot. Why do they rank?

Australian cities rank well because they spent heavily on water recycling, desalination and heat-smart design. Dubai ranks lower and faces a "significant decline" because its resilience is engineered and uses a lot of energy. The trend and the money to manage it matter more than today's heat.

Does moving abroad really lower my family's climate risk?

For a family moving from a high-risk city to a resilient one, yes, and by a lot. You get fewer extreme heat days, a much smaller climate tax, lower heat-related death risk and cleaner air for your children. Lagos to Auckland means roughly $8,380 a year in lower costs, and a child asthma rate of 7.8% instead of 18.5%. Those gains come with the normal costs of migration, so plan for both.

A final thought

Knowing these trends does not mean you must leave the city you love. It means you can decide with clear eyes. For many professionals in at-risk cities, that clear-eyed decision points to the same places: clean air, plenty of water, strong infrastructure, and a future that still looks liveable.