updated 3:31 p.m. ET Oct. 18, 2009
EDITOR'S NOTE — This is one of an occasional series of stories leading up to December's climate conference in Copenhagen, reporting on the impact, future and responses to climate change
SHANGHAI - This city of 20 million rose from the sea and grew into a modern showcase, with skyscrapers piercing the clouds, atop tidal flats fed by the mighty Yangtze River.
Now Shanghai's future depends on finding ways to prevent the same waters from reclaiming it.
Global warming and melting glaciers(冰川) and polar ice sheets are raising sea levels worldwide, leaving tens of millions of people in coastal areas and on low-lying islands vulnerable to flooding and other weather-related catastrophes(悲剧).