This paper considers the very large differences in adaptive capacity among the world’s urban centres. It then discusses how risk levels may change for a range of climatic drivers of impacts in the near term (2030–2040) and the long term (2080–2100) with a 2°C and a 4°C warming for Dar es Salaam, Durban, London and New York City. The paper is drawn directly from Chapter 8 of Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, the IPCC Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report. It includes the complete text of this chapter’s Executive Summary. The paper highlights the limits to what adaptation can do to protect urban areas and their economies and populations without the needed global agreement and action on mitigation; this is the case even for cities with high adaptive capacities. It ends with a discussion of transformative adaptation and where learning on how to achieve this needs to come from.