Posts tagged with 'heat wave'
The Best Defense Against 'Natural' Disasters Is Nature Itself
The Best Defense Against ‘Natural’ Disasters Is Nature Itself
I’ve watched in horror as Europe burns. Ferocious wildfires have swept through Spain, France and now Greece, scorching towns and forests and spewing toxic smoke. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. Many will have little left to return to. European ...
How Citizen Science Is Cooling Neighborhoods in Mexico
How Citizen Science Is Cooling Neighborhoods in Mexico
“The heat is terrible,” said Nadia, describing life in her hometown of Hermosillo, Mexico. “To get to work, we’re forced to take the bus because if you walk, you dehydrate. It’s impossible to walk.” Scorching temperatures affect more than just ...
How Is the World Coping With Extreme Heat?
How Is the World Coping With Extreme Heat?
From hydration breaks during the FIFA World Cup to recent heat waves leaving Europe sweltering in an early summer, extreme heat is reshaping daily life. Around the world, communities are adapting in real time to increasingly high temperatures. During Europe’s ...
Preparing Health Systems for Climate Risks Saves Lives — and Pays Off
Preparing Health Systems for Climate Risks Saves Lives — and Pays Off
Climate change is one of the greatest health threats we face. By 2050, it could claim nearly 16 million deaths across low- and middle-income countries. Extreme heat, the spread of climate-sensitive diseases like malaria and cholera, and disruptions to hospitals and other healthcare could ...
Urban Trees: An Underused Tool for Keeping People Cool
Urban Trees: An Underused Tool for Keeping People Cool
On a hot summer afternoon, the difference between one city block and the next can feel like a different world. On one street, the sun beats down from above while the pavement radiates heat from below. Just around the corner, ...
City Governments, Experts and Communities Unite to Address Heat and Health Challenges in Belo Horizonte and Campinas
City Governments, Experts and Communities Unite to Address Heat and Health Challenges in Belo Horizonte and Campinas
When the weather heats up in Belo Horizonte, residents of Morro do Papagaio get creative. “A lot of people put their blankets in the refrigerator,” said Amanda Lima, a 24-year-old university student, activist and resident of the south-central region of ...
World’s Informal Housing Crisis Demands a Climate Response
World’s Informal Housing Crisis Demands a Climate Response
When floods hit my hometown in Kenya last year, it was the poorest communities who suffered most. In Nairobi, where more than 3 million people live in vulnerable homes made of wood, sheet metal and concrete — many in low-lying ...
Meet CityMetrics: An Open-Source, Interactive Tool for Analyzing Urban Risks and Opportunities
Meet CityMetrics: An Open-Source, Interactive Tool for Analyzing Urban Risks and Opportunities
Which neighborhoods are suffering the most from rising urban heat? Where is flooding the biggest challenge? What other cities around the world are struggling with air pollution, and what can we learn from those that have improved the quality of ...
The State of Climate Action in 2025: 10 Key Findings
The State of Climate Action in 2025: 10 Key Findings
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, a watershed moment on climate action when more than 190 countries agreed to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels. Achieving ...
4 Levers to Help Scale Net-Zero Carbon and Resilient Housing
4 Levers to Help Scale Net-Zero Carbon and Resilient Housing
The built environment accounts for over one-third of global emissions. In rapidly developing markets like India and Mexico, a surge in housing construction faces a pivotal choice: lock in high-carbon infrastructure or, with the right interventions, enable resilient, low-carbon designs and ...
New Tool Helps Cities Select and Scale Nature-Based Solutions
New Tool Helps Cities Select and Scale Nature-Based Solutions
As cities try to restore the benefits of natural systems by mimicking how ecosystems function, one option they can use is nature-based solutions (NBS). However, cities often struggle to determine which types of interventions best suit their local context, due ...
Hot in the City. But It Doesn't Have to Be — We Have Answers
Hot in the City. But It Doesn’t Have to Be — We Have Answers
This op-ed was originally published by Context, the media platform of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, on June 16, 2025. Read the original piece here. A new study has found that 4 billion people – half of the world’s population – endured ...
1.5 Degrees C: Understanding World’s Critical Warming Threshold
1.5 Degrees C: Understanding World’s Critical Warming Threshold
Nearly a decade ago, the world rallied around the Paris Agreement on climate change and the goal of holding global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). Since then, the “1.5C goal” has become the world’s North Star ...
The Small Acts Building Urban Climate Resilience
The Small Acts Building Urban Climate Resilience
Resilience in cities is often framed around large-scale infrastructure projects and sweeping policy shifts. We see headlines about billion-dollar climate adaptation plans, smart cities leveraging AI for disaster response and ambitious net-zero pledges. But some of the most impactful solutions ...
Financing Urban Resilience: Making Nature-Based Solutions Central to Africa’s Development Agenda
Financing Urban Resilience: Making Nature-Based Solutions Central to Africa’s Development Agenda
Despite accounting for less than 3% of global terrestrial area, cities have had an outsized impact on our approach to planetary boundaries, affecting biodiversity and consumption of materials and energy. Studies show that cities have become responsible for 78% of carbon emissions, ...
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