As extreme heat claims lives around the globe, a growing number of municipalities are appointing chief heat officers (CHOs) to coordinate solutions for their residents.
Better yet, these CHOs are working together to develop a toolkit that other cities can use to combat extreme heat, Bloomberg News reports. Their work is supported by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Centre (Arsht-Rock), UN-Habitat, and others.
Arsht-Rock also offers a set of tools for activists wanting to raise awareness and reach decision-makers about the dangers of extreme heat.
More than 1.5 billion people globally have faced “dangerous” levels of heat this year, reports the Washington Post, which created a heat map illustrating these events plus interactive charts based on a detailed analysis of meteorological records. Heat waves hit cities hardest, Arsht-Rock explains, because of the “heat island effect” caused by materials such as concrete and metal that absorb and radiate heat, as well as a lack of trees and other greenery to cool things off.
Other factors that worry heat officers include energy poverty and the risk of variable climate with unexpected temperature spikes, like in Melbourne, Australia. A lack of awareness concerns the CHOs of Athens, Greece, and Miami-Dade County in Florida, where residents are used to hot temperatures, but not adequately prepared for extreme heat. For the CHO of North Dhaka, Bangladesh, energy poverty, a lack of buildings with safe temperatures for children, and a general lack of access to air conditioning are key issues.
The creation of a global network of CHOs got its impetus from Arsht-Rock, which set out in 2021 to establish a heat officer position in one city on each continent, Bloomberg says. It started with Miami-Dade and has spread to places like Freetown, Sierra Leone, Santiago, Chile, and Monterrey, Mexico.
Los Angeles jumped on board, as did Phoenix, both in the United States. So far, no Canadian cities are part of the network, which spans six continents.
