CSE briefing on heat waves in India – 2
Cities need a combination of early warning systems, preparedness and training among government officials; community outreach programmes to assist during a heat wave; and proactive urban planning to avoid the worst impacts of extreme heat.
The first Heat Action Plan (HAP) was developed for Ahmedabad in 2013. Under this, people will receive weather alerts through SMS on mobile phones and medical professionals will be trained to increase preparedness. The initiative avoided 1,190 deaths a year, according to a study published in 2018, that evaluated the plan’s impact on death rates.
Several cities around the world are hiring dedicated officials to address extreme heat. The first such official was hired in the Miami-Dade County in the United States – Jane Gilbert. In less than a year since Gibert’s appointment, four more cities have followed. In July 2021, Athens, the capital of Greece, named its former deputy mayor Eleni Myrivili as chief heat officer.
In October, Phoenix city in Arizona, US, and Freetown in Sierra Leone, Africa, named their chief heat officers. On March 3, 2022, Santiago, the capital of Chile, appointed urban planner Cristina Huidobro as the world’s fifth chief heat officer. Los Angeles in California, US, has also advertised a vacancy for the role.
The new-found urgency with which cities are hiring heat officers reflects a reckoning on heat unfolding across the world. Heat waves claimed over 166,000 lives between 1998 and 2017, according to the World Health Organization.
The third instalment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR 6) focuses on the importance of urban green and blue infrastructure such as green walls, greenways, street trees, urban forests, green roofs, blue spaces, to cool urban areas.
Urban trees can mitigate some of the impacts of climate change by reducing the urban heat island effect and heat stress. In addition, they can reduce stormwater runoff, improving air quality, and supporting health and well-being in areas where the majority of the world’s population resides.
