With the increasingly severe effects of global warming and over half the human population living in urban centers, the 21st century will be defined by the city and the climate crisis. Both will drastically impact all of our lives and represent two key issues that pose massive social challenges to humanity. These are not just two isolated events, as I will argue in this article. They are closely interlinked and mutually dependent, and ecological crises have become particularly drastic in urban areas. In the following, the problem is discussed on two levels. Firstly, I will more abstractly address the connection between urbanization and ecological crises from a global perspective and show why this is a social and class question. Secondly, I will examine the concrete example of Hanoi. The city and the concrete challenges which arise during continuing urbanization and intensifying ecological problems will be discussed.

One goal of this article is to contribute to a socio-ecological transformation and to create concrete knowledge to fight ecological crises for environmental justice. Understanding the interrelationships between capitalism, the urban environment, and nature is necessary in this regard as this field is often excluded from the debate. It will be made clear here why the right to the city and environmental justice are not separate questions but inevitably interact and can only be answered together. I will speak about ecological crises, with climate crises as the most important. We are concerned with a series of interdependent but interlinked crises, all of which arise from capitalism.