Rising temperatures were not considered in the planning when the world's million cities grew up. Many of them are now at risk of being transformed into furnaces – and it is the most vulnerable part of the population that is hardest hit, warns Eleni Myrivili, heat chief at the UN's program for housing and settlement issues.
Cities today are heat traps and built for other types of temperatures, for a different climate. We need to understand and completely change our perspective on how we upgrade and develop new areas, she says to AFP.
Shade is crucial
In the Greek capital Athens, the UN has worked to categorize extreme heat. Different levels of heatwaves are to trigger different types of guidelines and measures from a political point of view.
We have also created heat campaigns, so that people understand how dangerous the heat can be for their health and what they should do during heatwaves, says Eleni Myrivili.
Another aspect is to ensure that the population has access to cooling shade, especially in connection to train and bus stations, she explains. There, it is important that the buildings that create the shade have special properties that prevent them from absorbing heat when people stand right under them.
The world must adapt to a completely different climate in just a few decades, points out Eleni Myrivili.
We must prioritize shade, wind, and water, and, of course, nature.
Even Swedish cities are preparing for a warmer climate. In Stockholm, the focus is on, among other things, planting more street trees, says Malinda Flodman at the Traffic Office in the City of Stockholm.
One looks at how much crown cover one has. The bigger the crowns, the bigger the shade. It's good both for getting the temperature down during heatwaves locally on the street, but also for insects and animals, she says.
Air conditioning?
In order for the world to succeed in keeping up with the changes, it is required that more professional groups, such as landscape architects, ecologists, and foresters, contribute with their knowledge, according to Myrivili.
She highlights water as a particularly crucial element – which can either help or hinder. An example is air conditioning, which can be life-saving for the most vulnerable, but must be used with great caution.
We cannot air condition our way out of this misery that we have created, because air conditioning is a very selfish way to handle extreme heat, says Myrivili.
You cool down your own little space, at the same time as you blow out more warm air into the public spaces.
The picture is shared by Izabella Rosengren, biologist and science journalist, who has traveled around the world and investigated how different countries and cultures relate to extreme heat.
Air conditioning is a short-term solution because it consumes energy that is often not renewable. Then you actually contribute to the enhanced greenhouse effect instead of combating it, she says.
Countries that have lived with a warm climate for a long time are better at handling increased temperatures, she emphasizes.
There are extreme cases like in the middle of Australia where it is extremely hot and they have built cities inside the mountains. In North Africa, there have been cultures that have lived underground or built houses partially underground because it is cooler there, says Izabella Rosengren and continues:
And why not? It's actually how you should do it, look at those who have experienced this before.
National measures are required
She highlights Italy and the Middle East as further examples where people previously built homes in special ways: with clay instead of concrete as a material, a large tree in the yard that all rooms led to, and special windcatchers that led in cold wind from above.
Today, we have completely moved away from that with the quick solution that we can air condition everything. Now we have built everything with glass, which means that we build a greenhouse that we have to spend enormous amounts of energy on, to keep the buildings at a temperature that is habitable, says Izabella Rosengren.
One of the cities she has visited as a journalist is Athens. There, she met, among others, Eleni Myrivili, who was then employed as a heat chief, the first ever in a European capital.
It's a person who has the task of coming up with measures that will lower the temperature in a city. The proposed measures are not very popular because they make things more difficult by banning car traffic and the like, explains Izabella Rosengren.
Local measures can work on the microclimate - but to lower the global temperature, it's not enough to plant many trees and drive less on a city level, she points out.
If you're going to lower the average temperature globally, then much bigger things are required. Then national heat chiefs are also required.
Jenny Martorell/TT
Fact: Record heat 2024
TT
In 2024, the population in southeastern Europe was affected by an average of 37.3 days of severe heat stress, i.e., a perceived temperature of over 32 degrees. So many days have never been measured in a year since the calculations started in 1950. The same applies to tropical nights, temperatures above 20 degrees during an entire night, which in 2024 totaled 14.5 in southeastern Europe.
To calculate the perceived temperature, one takes into account, among other things, the actual temperature, humidity, and wind speed.
Source: Copernicus
