The Heat Action Platform

What is the Heat Action Platform?

The Heat Action Platform is a living, engagement-oriented tool for city officials, practitioners, and financial institutions to find guidance, both existing resources and tailor-made solutions, on reducing the human and economic impacts of extreme heat at the regional or municipal level. The platform offers opportunities to engage with world-leading experts across a diversity of disciplines to plan, fund, implement, and measure heat resilience actions.

The platform was developed by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme, the Cool Coalition, RMI, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, Mission Innovation and the World Economic Forum’s Global Commission on BiodiverCities by 2030.

The platform can support you to:

Develop a heat action plan or similar planning/goal-setting initiative;
Create an individual project or policy intervention with heat-risk reduction and preparedness goals;
Embed heat-risk reduction and preparedness strategies into another plan; or
Make the case for investments in community heat resilience.

What is the Policy Tool?

The Heat Action Platform is a living, engagement-oriented tool for city officials, practitioners, and financial institutions to find guidance, both existing resources and tailor-made solutions, on reducing the human and economic impacts of extreme heat at the regional or municipal level. The platform offers opportunities to engage with world-leading experts across a diversity of disciplines to plan, fund, implement, and measure heat resilience actions.

Explore the policy tool

What are the goals of this platform?

Connect practitioners and community leaders with global experts to co-develop heat resilience solutions that meet local needs.

Identify environmental, economic and social benefits of different heat resilience interventions.

Support implementation of heat adaptation and mitigation resilience initiatives related to extreme heat and urban cooling.

Key Partners

Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy

How do I use the Heat Action Platform?

Navigating the platform

The platform includes three phases with a total of nine steps, and you can start at any point in the process, depending on your goals and specific area(s) of interest. Below are suggestions on how to navigate the platform based on these four approaches.

Pick an approach and follow the suggested sequence to protect people from heat.

A heat action plan or similar planning initiatives: Users preparing a climate-focused plan such as a heat action plan can proceed through the steps largely in sequence, recognizing that much of the assessment and planning can and should be done concurrently.

An individual project/policy initiative with the goal of safeguarding people from heat: Many of the steps recommended for a user developing an overall plan are applicable, in a narrower focus, when considering individual projects and policies.

A component or lens for another plan to embed heat preparedness strategies: Users looking to embed elements that protect people from heat in another plan will have varying amounts of existing assessments accessible and can largely use the platform to assist with identifying solutions and financing options.

A reference to evaluate the effectiveness of heat resilience efforts for funders and investors: Users looking to support investments in heat resilient communities or projects may not have direct experience with such efforts, limiting their ability to engage, assess funding opportunities, and invest. These users can use the platform to understand global best practices for designing and implementing integrated, multisolution approaches to heat resilience.

Who is this platform for?

The platform is designed to be accessible to the general public, but is specifically aimed at:

Practitioners

Urban planners, climate change officers, chief resilience officers, chief heat officers, chief sustainability officers, and government officials focusing on emergency preparedness and response, climate change, public health, energy and environment.

Policymakers

Elected officials including mayors, governors, city and county/regional commissioners, and their senior advisors on environment, climate change, resilience, health, and emergency preparedness and response.

Development finance institutions

Specialized financial institutions that raise risk capital to finance economic development and climate action projects.

How does the platform support practitioners?

The platform supports practitioners with a platform process, technical resources, and case studies to develop an actionable heat resilience plan or a specific heat resilience project through:

Best practices for mitigating and adapting to extreme heat and case studies;
Inventory of solutions applicable to local context;
Monitoring and evaluation frameworks to inform quantifiable metrics and assessment methods; and
A direct channel to world-leading experts on heat risk and impact reduction.

How does the platform support policymakers?

The platform informs policymakers about the risks and opportunities for addressing extreme heat to empower them to set achievable and measurable targets that constituents and fellow elected officials will support. Toward this end, the platform will provide:The platform informs policymakers about the risks of extreme heat and opportunities for addressing extreme heat, with the aim of empowering them to set achievable and measurable targets that constituents and fellow elected officials will support.

Background material that articulates the urgency of enhancing resilience to extreme heat;
Best practices for heat-risk reduction and adaptation policies and action-oriented solutions; and
Monitoring and evaluation frameworks to inform quantifiable metrics to demonstrate impact.

How does the platform support development finance institutions?

DFIs can use the platform as a credential and resource, directing potential government partners to follow the steps to build capacity and develop quality heat action plans and/or projects.

How can I collaborate with Arsht-Rock and EHRA on implementation of the contents of this platform?

By itself, any guide or toolkit will be a limited answer to the needs of the people responsible for developing and implementing projects.

As part of this platform, users have a direct channel to working with Arsht-Rock and EHRA and receiving technical assistance on the implementation of platform modules or specific heat risk and impact reduction projects.

Throughout the modules, you will see contact information for the Arsht-Rock representative who you can reach out to discuss potential collaboration.

Extreme heat–the “silent killer”

ONE

Heat is harming people around the world.

Today, heat kills more people globally than any other climate-driven disaster. Higher temperatures increase mortality and morbidity through multiple pathways, including heat stroke and exhaustion, as well as by worsening existing cardiovascular, pulmonary, and renal diseases. Moreover, heat impacts our health and mental acuity as well as worker safety and productivity, decreases children’s learning, lowers agricultural yields, distorts infrastructure like rail lines and cable cars, and interrupts daily business and life in numerous ways. These impacts hurt people and stymie economies. For instance, worker productivity losses alone were calculated to be $100 billion in the United States for 2020.

TWO

Heat will continue to worsen.

Climate change is increasing the intensity, frequency, and duration of heat waves. Estimates show that, at 1.5°C of warming, 2.3 billion people could be vulnerable to severe and life-threatening heat waves globally. By the turn of the next century, without preventative measures, projections show that heat waves will negatively affect 75 percent people on the planet. Cities will be hotspots of climate impacts and heat risks: the average city could warm as much as 4°C by 2100, with catastrophic effects on the health and productivity of urban dwellers.

THREE

As temperatures rise, so does the inequality of extreme heat’s effects.

The urban poor will remain the most susceptible to heat-related health impacts and economic losses, suffering from a combination of medical conditions that are exacerbated by heat and living in communities with insufficient means to reduce heat’s effects. The economic impacts will be widespread. The average city will lose nearly 2 percent of its annual economic output if steps to build resilience to heat are not taken immediately—a loss of trillions of dollars in economic prosperity. Under a business-as-usual scenario some of the worst-off cities will lose almost 11 percent of gross domestic product to heat related losses by 2100.

FOUR

Cities are also a crucial part of the solution.

Action at the urban level can be transformational and deliver climate solutions and sustainable, climate-resilient development.

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About Arsht-Rock

Arsht-Rock builds individual and community resilience in the face of climate impacts.

About EHRA

EHRA works hand-in-hand with global leaders and practitioners at every level to increase heat resilience in urban areas, focusing on vulnerable populations.

Collaborate with us

Throughout the modules, you will see contact information for the Arsht-Rock representative who you can contact to discuss potential collaboration.

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