The world will need to adapt to increased temperatures. What can societies do to save lives?
Extreme heat has major impacts on human wellbeing: it makes it harder for kids to learn at school, reduces the productivity of outdoor workers, and puts pressure on healthcare systems. In the worst case, it kills.This is already an issue — particularly for countries in the tropics — but will become even more critical as the world warms. This article is the third in my series on extreme heat. In my previous articles, I looked at how many die from extreme temperatures today and how climate change could affect this in the future. In many of the world’s poorest countries, deaths are expected to increase if we don’t invest more in adaptation.Protecting people from extreme heat will require blending the old and the new. Technological solutions like air conditioning (AC) will be essential, but relying on them alone would be a mistake.The availability and affordability of AC is — and will continue to be — highly unequal, leaving the poorest households unable to protect themselves. It’s also not a solution for those who work outdoors in agriculture, construction, or as street sellers. This is the reality for most people in tropical countries, where heatwaves will be most extreme.The goal, then, is to build communities and cities more resilient to heat through urban planning, communication, and emergency responses.We can learn a lot from our ancestors, who learned how to build cities and design lifestyles that could cope with scorching summers and intense heat waves. That will not be enough in a warming world, but it’s a starting point to build new solutions.- How to design cities that are resilient to heat
- Building resilient public health responses to extreme heat
- Most households are expected to have air conditioning in the future, but some could be left behind