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Urban heat

During heat waves, the highest temperatures are often found in urbanized areas.

By 2070, 3.5 billion people will be heavily affected by heat, 1.6 billion of whom will live in urban areas (Chi Xu et al. 2020). Rising temperatures can negatively impact vulnerable people, workers, infrastructure and even GDP.

As the world warms, there is an urgent need to find ways to prevent the worst. Heat is a growing global challenge for communities large and small, across every development context, and requires collaboration amongst a wide array of disciplines and topic areas.

The uban heat island effect explained.
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Workers on a construction site during sunset
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Australia: Smart home materials protect from heat and cut energy bills

Imagine a material that passively absorbs excess heat during the day and releases it back into the home when temperatures drop at night, with no switches, no electricity and no noise. That's the magic of phase change materials, a type of smart material.

Conversation Media Group, the
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USA: City dwellers face unequal heat exposure en route to the Metro

Socioeconomic factors drive how much extreme heat public transit users in Chicago, NYC, and Washington, D.C., experience as they walk to and from metro stations.

Eos - AGU
woman experiencing heat at night
Research briefs
Dangerous nighttime heat rising in 83% of global cities analyzed

From the COP 30 Local Leaders Forum - a critical gathering of global mayors focused on climate action- a sweeping new scientific analysis was released of the most dangerous summer weather conditions across 100 major global cities.

HERA (Climate Resilience for All)
Edited image of a city overview shot
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Europe, Central Asia: Five ways cities are adapting to extreme heat

From Flames of change II: Urban action on Extreme Heat Across Europe and Central Asia, here are five ways cities in Europe and Central Asia are adapting to extreme heat.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)
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SEI Asia Podcast: Heat is the defining climate challenge for cities

At COP30, cooling and extreme heat was high on the global agenda. For the first time, governments put forward concrete steps to scale up sustainable cooling, strengthen heat-health systems, and support cities already struggling with rising temperatures.

Stockholm Environment Institute
A cooling center sign in Vancouver, Canada amidst a heatwave
Update
Climate shelters aim to save lives during urban heatwaves

From Barcelona to Boston, via Buenos Aires and Rosario, increasingly intense summers are forcing cities to create spaces to cool down. How successful have they been?

Dialogue Earth
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Documents and publications
Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities: Addendum for extreme heat risk management

The Extreme Heat Risk Management Scorecard, developed as an addendum to the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities, aims to support sub-national and local governments in assessing and strengthening their heat risk management efforts.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)
Moscow citizens rest at a city park with a fountain
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CityMetrics dashboard helps cities understand and reduce climate risks

The new CityMetrics site from WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities offers an interactive dashboard where users can explore key urban indicators and geospatial datasets from more than 60 cities that WRI works with.

World Resources Institute
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