Health issues and heat waves
In this lecture, we cover a first type of direct impacts :
- The impacts on freshwater availability
- The increase in heat wave risk
Adaptation to these impacts are important elements of adaptation strategies of numerous cities around the world.
Required reading
A few short documents about heat risks in cities, and about adaptation policies (NB: you are of course not expected to remember the exact figures, what is important are the orders of magnitude and the qualitative ideas) :
- From Work to Transportation, Extreme Heat Is Reshaping Urban Life
- How can the world reduce deaths from extreme heat?
- Why cities need more than just air conditioning for extreme heat
- an example of pioneering adaptation policy: Spanish experience in climate shelters practice (a summary is available here in French or Spanish)
Freshwater availability
To know more
- A C40 webpage about freshwater availability in various cities across the world.
- On C40 website, examples of adaptation policies in various cities
- To know more about water and climate change in Paris, see this document [in French].
Heatwaves
Heatwaves and health issues
Adaptation to heatwaves
To know more
More resources on heat and adaptation:-
- A series of papers by Our World in Data:
- How many people die from extreme temperatures, and how this could change in the future: Part one
- How many people die from extreme temperatures, and how this could change in the future: Part two
- How can the world reduce deaths from extreme heat?
- Air conditioning causes around 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. How will this change in the future?
- The reports by WRI, for instance How Is the World Coping with Extreme Heat?
- The documents by C40, for instance How to adapt your city to extreme heat? on C40 website
- Adapting to Heat on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website
- The explanation of heat island effects on MIT website
- The paradox of air conditioning: A life-saver that aggravates global warming by Le Monde
- [in French] Rafraîchir les villes by Ademe and its shorter international version in English
- [in French] How can we adapt Paris to heatwaves? by the Agence Parisienne du Climat
- [in French] Ilots de chaleur urbains : à quoi ce phénomène est-il dû ? Quelles villes sont les plus touchées ? by Le Monde