180 ITU‐T's Technical Reports And Specifications Given that land use, buildings, electricity production, industrial energy use, transport, or waste management generate over 90% of GHG emissions sources in cities.17 Cities face climate change mitigation challenges, particularly to minimize emissions or to optimize services that produce GHG emissions on a local level. At present, existing technologies for climate change mitigation in cities still require major technological shifts, new investments and integrated planning. From a climate adaptation point of view, cities are the territorial areas of the planet that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. These specific impacts differ among countries, regions and cities, and can vary from an increase in extreme weather events and flooding, to hotter temperatures in particular locations, negatively affecting social welfare in cities. Floods for example, are impacting major industrial activities or are exacerbating the conditions of poverty for inhabitants of vulnerable areas. 18 At the same time cities face challenges in implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. However, these challenges can turn into opportunities as cities provide the optimal scenario to lead and foster the use of ICTs for climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this respect, cities will need to invest today to reduce costs to adapt and transform their infrastructure in the future in order to be able to optimize city services. Cities need low‐carbon services. Smart technologies supported by ICTs can help achieve these goals (e.g. smart building or smart transport solutions). From an adaptation point of view, the role of ICT infrastructure and services are critical for climate adaptation planning, as well as for the implementation of disaster risk management programs. Cities that are in the process of becoming smart and sustainable, have a huge opportunity to include in their climate change actions plans, ICT infrastructure and ICT solutions to improve efficiency of their city services. As the intensity of urbanization is expected to increase, most of the urban infrastructure that will exist in 40–50 years has not yet been built. Therefore cities are called on to plan a long term strategy with ICTs in mind that may avoid locking themselves in costly, high‐emitting and non‐climate resilient infrastructures. Shortage of SSC expertise In order to succeed in the implementation of smarter and more sustainable cities, expert professionals in this specific field are needed. This refers to urban planners, technologists, economists, among other types of professionals, who must be prepared to deal with the challenges of the new urban landscape. Apart from being experts on their specific field they should have a general awareness of all the other aspects that define and shape cities. More importantly, this transversal knowledge has to enable them to have a holistic and integrated view of the SSC framework. In this scenario, an urban planner or an environmental expert would also have general knowledge about the capabilities and functioning of the Internet of Things (IoT) applied to cities, and the ICT infrastructure that is needed for that and can therefore have a holistic vision of the SSC. Growing inequality The World Economic Forum on its Outlook on the Global Agenda 201419, ranked widening income disparities as the second most significant global trend. A recent study by Oxfam suggest that \"seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years\" and ____________________ 17 http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html 18 Guide to Climate Change Adaptation in Cities. World Bank. (2011) 19 http://www.weforum.org/reports/outlook‐global‐agenda‐2014