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.

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.

Explore the Policy Tool

Find policy solutions for your community with the Heat Action Platform Policy Tool.

Explore the policy tool

Navigating the Platform

Discover how to use the Heat Action Platform and how collaborate with us to implement what you’ve learned.

Learn how to use the platform

Key Partners

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.

Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy

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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Welcome to the Heat Action Platform!

Explore the Policy Tool

Find policy solutions for your community with the Heat Action Platform Policy Tool.

Navigating the Platform

Discover how to use the Heat Action Platform and how collaborate with us to implement what you’ve learned.

Conduct a Baseline Heat Risk Assessment

Assess Heat Risk Awareness

Identify Heat-Related Vulnerabilities and Impacts

Develop an Education and Engagement Strategy

Explore Heat Adaptation Solutions

Finance and De-Risk Heat Adaptation Projects

Implement and Scale Heat Action