Extreme Heat: The Silent Killer

Extreme heat has a profound impact on human health - and the health of the planet, and all who live on it. In this episode, we hear firsthand accounts of extreme heat impacts from Cities 1.5 listeners around the world in Calgary, Canada, Athens, Greece and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and delve into the terrifying effects of rising temperatures on daily life - such as disease outbreaks and threats to vulnerable residents - especially in cities in the Global South, which face disproportionate risks with only limited resources. We are joined by experts working on the frontlines of resilience and adaptation, from Buenos Aires and Toronto, who share critical insights on how cities are safeguarding vulnerable communities amidst record-breaking heat, and the deadly health consequences that flow from it.

Image Credit: Photo by T.H. Chia @ Unsplash

Featured guests:
Amy Buitenhuis is the C40 Head of Urban Heat Programmes and co-manages the C40 Cool Cities Network.

Patricia Himshoot is the Manager for Climate Change for the Buenos Aires city government in Argentina, and is a biologist by training.

Links
Summer 2024 was world's hottest on record - BBC
As heat wave scorches North India, scientists warn of risks from ‘wet bulb’ conditions - The Conversation
Heat crisis - AccuWeather
Heat and Health - WHO
The Future We Don’t Want - C40 report
Heat Action Platform - C40 Knowledge Hub
Impacts of climate change on Black populations in the United States - McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility
Urban Heat Island - National Geographic
Addressing Urban Heat in Buenos Aires: Community-Led Solutions in Barrio 20 - Global Center on Adaptation
Buenos Aires 'Citizens Ready Against Climatic Change’ Programme - C40

If you want to learn more about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, please visit our website: https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/

Cities 1.5 is produced by the University of Toronto Press and Cities 1.5 is supported by C40 Cities and the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. You can sign up to the Centre newsletter here. https://thecentre.substack.com/

Our executive producers are Calli Elipoulos and Peggy Whitfield.

Produced by Jess Schmidt: https://jessdoespodcasting.com/

Edited by Morgane Chambrin: https://www.morganechambrin.com/

Music is by Lorna Gilfedder: https://origamipodcastservices.com/

Transcript

David 00:00

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] I'm David Miller and you're listening to Cities 1.5, a podcast exploring how cities are leading global change through local climate action. 

Jess Schmidt 00:20

[rotary dial telephone rings] [clicks] [gentle music] I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and the July we just had was the hottest on record in the 141-year history of temperature-keeping for my city. It was unbearably hot. People don't have air conditioning here because nobody's ever needed it before. We also have had really terrible air quality this summer because the town of Jasper to the north of us burnt to the ground because of a forest fire, and so you couldn't have windows open for a while because the smoke was so bad. It's tough in Canada because you spend all winter putting up with the cold, knowing that you're going to have a beautiful summer, and the extreme weather that we're experiencing has made the summer more terrifying than the winters are. [music ends] [receiver chimes, replaced in cradle]

Irène Skoula 01:15

[rotary dial telephone rings] [clicks] [gentle music] My name is Irene and I live in Athens, Greece. The summers in Athens were always hot in an enjoyable way, which did not create any discomfort. The past few years, this has dramatically changed. In July, we had 17 consecutive days with temperatures over 37°C, while at night, things weren't much better. We know that Athens has one of the most intense urban heat island effects in the world. This has a big impact on our physical and mental health. We literally couldn't even go out for a short walk during the day for 17 days, and our only option to get some fresh air was at night with temperatures at 30° or more.

My daughter, who has asthma, was avoiding being outside as she could not breathe. I felt depressed. I felt I was kept like a prisoner in my own house. I think summers will only become worse and, unless action is taken, our future won't be bright. [music continues then ends] [receiver chimes, replaced in cradle]

Ilan Cuperstein 02:24

[gentle, electronic music] Hello. I'm Ilan Cuperstein, recording from Rio de Janeiro Brazil. While being used to heat in the past few years, the heat waves have become more intense and have lasted for longer. And, in the past summer I caught myself for the first time, planning my day around heat. With a 2-year-old toddler, in a month when we had temperatures of about 30°C in the shade by 8:30 AM, that meant we couldn't really find any open public space to go, so I was planning the day around places with air conditioning, including houses of friends and relatives, shopping malls, which are far from ideal with a 2-year-old toddler who wants to run around and experience the world. And, that is coming from myself, someone who lives in a nice area of the city with a lot of urban trees. And that only made me worry about people living in favelas and other underprivileged areas of the city where heat is much more intense and they have much less green coverage. So, the impacts on health, education, efficiency, safety are incredible, and they are bound to only get worse. [music continues then ends] [rotary dial telephone rings] [clicks] 

David 03:43

[urgent music] Heat – sweltering, sweaty, sickness-inducing heat... As you just heard, scorching temperatures have become the norm all over the world, from Jasper to Jakarta and everywhere in between. As we've heard already in other episodes this season, rising temperatures have a dramatic impact on our physical and mental health and on our ability to work and function normally. And, the mercury keeps rising.

Last year was widely cited as being the hottest year on record, but this summer's heat has already surpassed 2023's records. Temperatures have risen to the limit of human survivability in places like India, Pakistan, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. The oceans are boiling, threatening the survival of the flora and fauna which live within them. Not only are temperature records being smashed, but the frequency of heat waves is also rapidly escalating. [music continues then ends]

[delicate, sombre music] Heat has become a global killer, with the World Health Organization estimating 489,000 heat-related deaths around the world each year from 2000 to 2019. That's with most climate risks. Global South cities bear the brunt of the negative impacts from boiling temperatures, despite contributing the least to the climate crisis. Further deepening the injustice, these cities often have the least resources to protect public health and mitigate against scorching weather. [music ends]

[energetic, upbeat music] The impacts of extreme heat on both planetary and public health are terrifying, but there is much cities can do to safeguard their populations while we wait impatiently for the world to transition away from the source of the problem – the burning of fossil fuels. [music continues then ends]

[light, rhythmic music] Later on in this episode, we'll hear what the city of Buenos Aires is doing to protect its residents from the health impacts of extreme heat, and how the rest of us can protect our most vulnerable residence from this silent killer. But first, I speak with a fellow Torontonian and C40 staff member about how heat impacts cities globally and what mayors are doing to tackle it. So, let's dive in. [music continues then ends]

Amy Buitenhuis 06:37 

[rotary dial telephone rings] [clicks] My name is Amy Buitenhuis. I'm the Head of Urban Heat Programs at C40, and I'm speaking to you from Toronto in Canada. [receiver chimes, replaced in cradle]

David 06:53

Amy, thanks for being with us on Cities 1.5. 

Amy Buitenhuis 06:56 

Hi, David. I'm thrilled to be here. 

David 06:58

For the benefit of our listeners, can you just introduce yourself a bit and speak a bit about you, your career, and what you do now? 

Amy Buitenhuis 07:08 

Yes. Well, as you alluded to, David, I used to work for the City of Toronto for just under 10 years. So, when I was at the City of Toronto, I was working in many different departments on many different topics. I worked on housing policy, I worked on homelessness policy, and I was part of the team that created the resilience strategy for the city and was working on climate change and resilience.

And, throughout all of my roles at the City of Toronto, heat was a theme. It was never the main part of my job, but it was coming up a lot. Working on apartment buildings, there was a lot of discussion about how apartment buildings in Toronto really don't have air conditioning and can get really hot in the summers. There were concerns about people experiencing homelessness in the summer, experiencing heat. And then, of course, thinking about climate change and resilience, there was thinking about the future of heat in Toronto.

Now, my role at C40 is to support a network of cities around the world to take action to make their cities safe and livable places in the face of extreme heat caused by climate change, and a big part of my work is sharing best practices across cities on extreme heat and how to cool our cities. 

David 08:19

So we're going to delve into those best practices, but first, to give listeners a bit of context, can you just talk about why addressing heat matters? You know, how extreme is heat going to be? Is it different in cities? Where are we right now? Are we in a place where we're seeing temperatures increase and impact the health of people and the viability of neighbourhoods and cities? 

Amy Buitenhuis 08:43 

As global average temperatures increase, what that means for us in our homes and in cities, and across communities, is that we're going to experience average temperatures throughout the year—average summer or heat-season temperatures will be higher—and we'll also experience more frequent and more dangerous extreme heat events. And then, we'll also experience more, you know, sort of compounding events like droughts or wildfires that are often linked to extreme-heat events.

So, things are definitely getting hotter, and the reason that this is so important is because heat really impacts our bodies and our health. The heat is often called kind of the silent killer because, when we think of climate change, we often think about storms and the visuals from those can be really impactful, of seeing communities destroyed. And they are really destructive. But, the death toll from extreme heat is much, much higher than most climate hazards and, in some regions, is much higher than all climate hazards combined. 

David 09:46

So, let's talk about that for a minute, because it's not going to be intuitive to people. Can you talk about why heat itself in a city is so dangerous? What is it about the heat? I mean, if we're only rising 1.5°, why does that matter so much? And what's the actual mechanism and impact on the ground? 

Amy Buitenhuis 10:08 

[delicate, sombre music] Yes. Well, first, let's talk about the health aspect. Even small increases in temperature can be really impactful for people's health. So, when we experience extreme heat, our bodies are impacted, our organs are impacted, so heat puts a strain on our heart, it can put a strain on our brain and cause confusion, put a strain on our liver, it can put a strain on our skin. This can result in deaths.

We were talking about Canada and we're both here, based in Canada. There was a heat dome event that happened in Vancouver in 2021. This is a city that we think of as having very mild weather, and so this heat dome event was a really surprising event and, unfortunately, over 600 people died in the span of a few days in 2021 in Vancouver. This was actually the largest mass casualty event in Canada after the Halifax explosion in 1917. [music ends] 

David 10:59

Wow, that's over 100 years. 

Amy Buitenhuis 11:02 

Exactly. So, these can be really, really catastrophic events. There's been some really excellent review of deaths across Europe. There was a 2003 heat wave in Europe that claimed over 70,000 lives. In the last two years, in Europe, there have been, you know, between 40,000 and 60,000 people dying every year because of extreme heat, so this is a really, really impactful climate event.

We have been breaking records with heat over the last few years in some pretty unbelievable ways. 2023 has been confirmed to be the warmest calendar year in our global temperature data records going back to 1850, and it's the first time, apparently on record, where every single day in the year exceeded 1°C above pre-industrial levels, and almost half of the days in 2023 were more than 1.5° warmer than pre-industrial levels. There were many months throughout the year that broke records, in and of themselves. So, 2023 was a really hot year and 2024 is being projected as potentially breaking records again.

So, there were a couple of organizations—the Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre and the World Weather Attribution, as well as Climate Central—who did a report on this to look at what the contribution of climate change would be, and what they found is that there were an average of 26 days that were excess extreme-heat days that probably would not have occurred because of climate change. 

David 12:35

Who is particularly vulnerable to these implications? 

Amy Buitenhuis 12:39 

Well, like all climate risks, heat impacts everybody, of course, but it does not impact everybody equally. So, some people are physiologically more at risk of heat-related illness and death because of the ways that it impacts our body that I was mentioning, so this is particularly important for seniors, for people with pre-existing conditions including diabetes, for people with disabilities.

But, we also know that social and economic and historical differences in our communities put people more at risk. So, for example, in New York City, we know that Black New Yorkers are more likely to die from the impacts of heat than white New Yorkers, and this inequity is due to the current structural racism that exists in our communities that creates economic, healthcare, housing, energy, and other systems that benefit white people over people of colour.

And, when we looked at who died in the Vancouver heat dome that I mentioned, what we saw was over 98% of people are dying in their homes, so they're dying at home. Two thirds were over 70 years old, and more than half lived alone. And, people who lived in what they called socially and materially-deprived neighbourhoods were overrepresented in those who died. So, you can see that, yeah, absolutely, like, our physiology makes some people more at risk – seniors, for example. But, part of it is inequality and isolation, so people who live alone are much more likely to be impacted by heat-related illness and death. These are really preventable – preventable deaths and preventable illnesses.

So, we've been talking about how heat impacts different organs of our body, including our brains, and heat can make us more confused and make us struggle with decision making, and it can also exacerbate existing mental health conditions. And there are also certain mental health medications that make us more vulnerable to extreme heat. So, all of these things can result in different mental health issues happening during extreme heat events.

This is caused usually by changes in temperatures, so in communities that are always really hot, people's bodies are more acclimatized to this temperature. But, the issue really comes from really big changes, especially at the beginning of the heat season. So, if there's an early heat wave at the beginning of a summer period, that's a time that can be really dangerous for people's health and for people's mental health. 

David 15:06

Why is it so bad in cities? Is there something about cities themselves that makes this worse? 

Amy Buitenhuis 15:13 

[driving music] Yes, absolutely, David. So, heat is worse in cities because of how they are designed and built, and there's a term for this that many people might have heard of – urban heat island effect. So, this happens when we have dense buildings across the cities and we also have a lot of paved areas, and these materials are very effective at trapping heat compared to natural ecosystems and rural areas, which often have a lot of shading from trees, from vegetation and permeable ground that can be cooled through evaporating moisture. So, that's one part is the way that cities are designed and built, and the materials that we use.

And, the other piece is that cities generate their own heat, which can come from air conditioners or the heat from vehicles. The other thing that's important to think about with cities and heat is that the differences are exacerbated at night. [music ends] The materials that we use to build our cities and to build our roads really trap that heat very well and hold their heat into the evening. And so, that means that night-time temperatures in the city can be much hotter than in rural areas.

So, just to put some numbers to it, so urban heat island can mean that cities can be 3°, 5°, sometimes 7° hotter than surrounding areas, but that can be even more significant at night. It could be up to 12°C warmer. This is where our work on adaptation and resilience and our work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions really has to come together, because cooling and air conditioning really is a life-saving technology for many people. And yet, it's putting huge demand on our energy systems. 

David 16:52

Can you talk a little bit then about what cities are actually doing about this really insidious impact of heat and how they're linking that to mitigation efforts, as well, to build a more resilient city and address the kinds of impacts you've been discussing? 

Amy Buitenhuis 17:11 

Yeah. So, there's a lot that cities are doing right now on extreme heat, which is really exciting. I think the first thing is taking on heat as an issue. There isn't one department that is typically responsible for dealing with heat within our cities, but some cities are starting to look at how heat is governed. And so, for example, in Phoenix, Arizona, which is an incredibly, incredibly hot city in the desert, has actually created a department of heat (Office of Heat Response and Mitigation), and they actually have a team now that's dedicated to addressing extreme heat, which really makes sense for their city. And, even if you don't have a chief heat officer in your city, it's important to look at, "Okay, who is responsible for extreme heat?" and, "How can we make plans for the future that work across different departments?" So, that's one part of it.

The next part is mapping and understanding how heat is impacting the city, so looking at which neighbourhoods are the hottest and looking at where people are most at risk to heat-related illness and death, and then making plans around that.

So, once you really understand what the problem is in your city, then of course you need to take action. So, what that looks like varies a lot – definitely trying to reduce temperatures across the city using nature, so really having trees, having greenery, having permeable surfaces is really, really important. The city of Athens has set a goal to have 30% of their city be green as part of their work to address heat. 

Tackling roads is one of the ways that cities are trying to make areas cooler, so cities are using treatment on roads to reduce their temperatures, using cool pavement surfaces. So, in Los Angeles, in Phoenix, Arizona, in Paris and Tokyo, these are all cities that are experimenting with different cooling technology on their roads. So, they are actually painting the roads with a surface that is a light colour, that reflects more of the sunlight, and that results in the road surface area being a lower temperature than it would be if it was a black asphalt road. 

David 19:20

Got it. 

Amy Buitenhuis 19:22 

There's also cities that are trying to make their roadways and surfaces more permeable, so Rome, that's a big focus for them is looking at areas that are really sealed and not permeable and trying to make them permeable through different pavements like cobblestones, let's say. Another thing that cities are looking at is trying to improve access to shade and the architecture of their city to increase the amount of shade that's available. Barcelona is doing this, Tel Aviv is doing this. There are a number of cities that are looking at—Paris, as well—that are looking at, "How much of our city is shaded?" and, "How can we increase shade in our public spaces?"

The city of Paris in particular was trying to think about, "Okay, how can we use temporary shade structures in places where we can't actually plant trees, that it's just not appropriate to create shade through trees? How can we create temporary shade structures for the public?" and this was especially important building up to the Olympics. So, "How can we make people who are watching the Olympics stay cool under shade?"

David 20:21

Am I right in sort of assuming that the places that have less access to shade also generally, but perhaps not exclusively, tend to be the lower-income communities in a city? Is there a correlation between poverty and the impact of extreme heat? 

Amy Buitenhuis 20:38 

[gentle music] Yes, absolutely. So, we talked earlier about people who are living in poverty are more likely to be impacted by extreme heat, but that also is partially because of the way that neighbourhoods are designed. So, the concept of tree equity is something that is growing in terms of popularity, and that's looking at, "Where are there the most trees across cities?" and what we found is that lower-income neighbourhoods have significantly fewer trees than higher-income neighbourhoods and, of course, that has a huge impact on the neighbourhood because trees, they provide shade for people walking down the street, they also cool the area and reduce urban heat island effect. They also reduce the cooling demand, so if you have a tree outside your home, your air conditioner, if you are lucky enough to have one, your air conditioner will have to work significantly less and your home will be much cooler.

Extreme heat also has an impact on our economies, and the biggest impact that heat has on our economy is the impact that it has on our ability to work. [music fades out] Extreme heat reduces people's ability to work because extreme heat will reduce their capacity and their productivity. So, this is especially important for people who are working outside, who are experiencing the worst of heat.

The World Labour Organization has projected that heat will reduce total working hours worldwide by 2.2% by 2030, and they estimate that this will reduce global GDP by $2.4 billion, which is kind of an unimaginable number. But, this is their way of trying to really quantify, "How much will extreme heat impact our economies?" And this is by 2030, so this is coming up pretty quickly.

And, this is especially important for cities because there are a lot of outdoor workers in cities, especially where cities are growing. A big part of our economy is construction and building new homes and new infrastructure, and if we can't build new homes and new infrastructures in our cities at the rate that we need to, this will have a really big impact on our cities.

It's also really important to think about informal economies in Global South cities. So, Freetown in Sierra Leone has done a study of market sellers, who are mostly women, and they're selling vegetables and fruit. They work mostly outside in outdoor markets, and extreme heat can have a really, really big impact on their ability to sell their goods in in order to provide for their families, and it also impacts the quality of their goods, so they might not be able to keep their produce in extreme-heat conditions. There are so many ways that extreme heat really, really impacts our economies and cities. 

The other piece is the impact of heat on our infrastructure. So, in really, really hot temperatures, there are sometimes times where rail infrastructure or transit and other transit infrastructure will actually buckle, so rails or cords will buckle in extreme heat. And then, the demand on energy can often cause a power outage during extreme heat events, and this can lead to even less cool space. It can lead to reduction in our ability to cool and refrigerate our food and our medicines and important things that need to remain cool. So, this also has a negative impact on our economies.

David 23:53

Can you talk a bit about what Global South cities are doing and how bad the problem is there? 

Amy Buitenhuis 24:00 

Yes, absolutely. So, heat is a problem across the globe and extreme heat is an issue for cities that have not really experienced it in the past—so, we've been talking a lot about Vancouver—but it's also an issue for cities where heat is a part of life, like Rio de Janeiro or Kuala Lumpur. It's often hard to talk about extreme heat in those places because heat is such a part of people's identity, and living with heat is such a joyous part of life. So, in some ways, these cities actually have a lot to teach cities in cooler climates because there is architecture and there are cultural events, and there are cultural practices that are all about staying cool. So, that's one important piece.

So, as our communities get hotter, we're going to be living in much more extreme temperatures by 2030 and, especially by 2050, and for cities that are already extremely hot, in the Middle East and across Asia, this is going to be a huge, huge issue, and I want to be careful because communities have lived in hot environments and deserts for millennia, so we can live in really hot environments as humans. But, the way that we design our cities, the way that we are designing our big, tall towers with glass throughout the tower and air conditioning required in every single building in order to survive, that is not something that is sustainable and that is not something that can be sustained as we experience hotter and hotter temperatures. [delicate, sombre music] So, we really need a fundamental shift in how we build cities to try to embrace this new, warmer temperature, to try to embrace this new life that we will need to build in hotter environments. [music ends] 

It's so important that we start to shift the way that our neighbourhoods, our roads, our communities are built to have more access to nature and to really make them much cooler.

And I think the other thing that's really tricky is connecting with the most vulnerable people in a heat wave. So, we know that people living alone are most at risk. How do we connect with those people? They're isolated, and so we need to figure out creative and interesting ways to try to reach those communities. Actually, Vancouver has a really innovative program, I think, coming out of the heat dome that happened in 2021 where they are working with different health organizations that have relationships with seniors and with people that are more at risk to extreme heat, so that those organizations that might be seeing those people once a month for a regular health check-up during an extreme heat wave can give them a call or even make a house call. And, there's even a program that's focused on Indigenous people in Vancouver that does land-based cooling, so that actually goes and picks up people and drives them to more rural areas or to give access to the land during a heat wave. 

David 26:51

You worked at the City of Toronto in areas that really touched the lives of all sorts of residents, particularly lower-income ones. You've worked in capacities, thinking about building resilience. You're now working on a really important initiative, heading the Urban Heat Programs at C40. You've learned a lot, seen a lot. So, can you describe what a good life would mean to you? What's a good life for Amy? How can this work that's going on globally, protecting against the threat of extreme urban heat, help to ensure good life for other city residents around the world?

Amy Buitenhuis 27:35 

A good life doesn't have just one thing in it, so it doesn't just mean having an air conditioner in your home so that you can stay cool. Certainly, in a city, a good life needs to be a place where people can get to their work safely in a way that's cool but also quick, whether or not driving for a long time or spending hours, taking five different buses. And then, when they get at their job, they feel protected, they feel safe, so that if they're a construction worker, building new buildings to help the future of the city, that their job is safe and they can take a break when it's really hot. That, when they come home, they're not so exhausted from being in the heat that they can contribute to their family life, that then, you know, we can go for a bike ride after work or we can go to a park or be around nature, still within the city.

A good life also, I think for me, involves knowing your neighbours so that, when there is a climate event, like an extreme heat alert or a storm, that people aren't isolated, that you can give people a call, that you can support each other in a community. 

David 28:39

That point, I think, is really beautiful, that we need to build communities. 

Amy Buitenhuis 28:44 

[driving, pensive music] We really do, and I think that's why working on extreme heat is such a transformative topic, because there's a lot you can do with infrastructure. You know, we're talking about more trees, we're talking about changing the way we build roads, but if you only made people more connected, if all you could do in a city was forge more connections across people who are isolated, you would save lives. You don't need to build any new infrastructure to do that. 

David 29:10

It's a really interesting and powerful point. Amy, thanks so much, not just for your time today, but for your ongoing work on this really critical issue that's getting worse, and we're just starting to see a collective response from cities to address the issue. 

Amy Buitenhuis 29:26 

Thank you so much, David. [music ends] 

David 29:29

[light, driving music] This episode of Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press with generous support from C40 Cities. Want more access to current research on how city leaders are approaching climate action? We also publish the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy. Our mission is to publish timely, evidence-based research that contributes to the urban climate agenda and supports governmental policy towards an equitable and resilient world.

The Journal serves as a platform for dynamic content that highlights ambitious, near-term climate action, with a particular focus on human-centred solutions to today's most pressing climate challenges. To read the latest issue, visit JCCPE.utpjournals.press or click on our link in the show notes.

Patricia Himschoot 30:28 

[rotary dial telephone rings] [clicks] Hello. I am Patricia Himschoot. I am from Buenos Aires City, Argentinian. I am the Climate Change Manager for Buenos Aires. [receiver chimes, replaced in cradle]

David 30:39

Patricia, welcome to Cities 1.5. 

Patricia Himschoot 30:42 

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this podcast. 

David 30:47

Could you just tell the listeners briefly, what are the risks that Buenos Aires faces from increasing temperatures and heat waves, and from flooding? And, who are the vulnerable groups in Buenos Aires who are most impacted by this?

Patricia Himschoot 31:05 

Buenos Aires, like most of the cities in the world, are suffering some increase in the temperature. In the last years, we were having some increase in the average maximum temperature, more or less 1°C, and in the minimum, more or less 1.7°C. We were not suffering heat waves in the past, not so much. I remember only one heat wave from my first 50 years, but in the last years, we are having a lot of heat waves. We are doubling the amount of heat waves we had in the last century. We are having longer heat waves. 

For floods, similarly, we are a city that is very humid—humid city—that we have some special rainfalls, very strong rainfalls. But, in the last years, we have suffered very fast and strong storms. We have received a lot of water in very few time. We know that, in all the city, we have a lot of precipitation, and things like that. For that, we are suffering more flooding.

Buenos Aires City is a very nice city, but we have some vulnerable groups, especially you know that we are in the economic crisis in this moment and, for the last year, we are having more people that live in shanty towns. That people, because they don't have good infrastructure, they don't have green spaces in the places they live. Those places have a high density. Then, they are a very vulnerable group to the impacts of climate change. 

David 32:53

Buenos Aires is one of the world's great cities with an incredible history. You know, it's deeply worrying to hear about those impacts. Heat, flooding, dengue—it sounds like all of them have risk to the health of the population of BA. 

Patricia Himschoot 33:12 

Yes, we are having that for the last years. For that, we decided the government would have to work in health and climate change. We noticed that it's something new in this area of people that work in climate change, but we are paying attention because, really, we are having a lot of impact of that. We have impact or risk in the population, and we have economic impact for the city.

Then, we are working a lot in preparedness for that, and in the emergency and in things that, in the past, we were not taking account of, you know. In the past, we were paying a lot of attention in mitigation in natural-based solutions, in the flooding, in these kinds of things. But now, we are noticing that that is something that we need to work on, especially in health. And for me, it's an opportunity because you know that, most of the time, the government is not taking enough time for climate change.

I always say, if we really understand the problem that we have and the climate crisis that we are living in, we see some improvement, some reduction of GHG emissions, but then, we are not doing the things that we need to do. I suppose that the impact on health could help us—all the people and the government and the politician—to understand that they need to work in that direction. 

David 34:49

Patricia, it's a really interesting point you just made, that the health impacts of climate change may be reinforced to national governments and city governments and people – the importance to act against climate change. I wonder if you could talk a bit more about that. 

Patricia Himschoot 35:08 

[delicate, sombre music] I think it's an opportunity for us to understand that we will have serious problems in the future with people, with health, if we are not doing the right things right now. We need to prepare for the impacts that we will have in the future. We know that we can stop emissions tomorrow—all the work can stop emissions tomorrow—but the impact will continue.

You know, I am a biologist, I am an ecologist, I study systems. You know that the climatology system is very complicated. It's a complex system. We need a lot of time to go to another point of equilibrium. We don't know at what point of equilibrium we will be going... [music fades out] I hope that a point that permits the life. Like, we know, in the past, in this planet, that we are sure that this will be not very fast.

Then, we get to prepare for the future, and I am sure that it's not only one year, five years. We will need to prepare to more than 20 years, 100 years. We don't know. Then, it's important to work in that and try to think about different plans that prepare the population and act in an emergency, because we are having emergencies right now, you know, with the heat waves, with the storms which are very, very strong. In the summer, we had a very big storm in Buenos Aires City. There were a lot of problems in the city with the areas that are very old and poor, and we had a lot of loss, then we need to prepare for that. 

David 37:01

The United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, recently spoke about this issue of preparation, and he spoke to the importance of early warning systems for heat and flooding. What do you think of his comments there? Is that something that cities need to look into? If so, is it feasible? Do the systems exist and has Buenos Aires considered the issue of early warning systems since the Secretary General raised this? 

Patricia Himschoot 37:32 

Yes, for me, it's very important, that kind of system. Like all the cities, we are planning to reinforce our early systems, but there are some problems but I'm thinking that’s not only for Buenos Aires City, For me, it’s in most of the Latin American cities. That is we don't have enough information. Most of the time, we don't have enough information to try to do this early system efficiently.

In Buenos Aires City, we have two places in the city that take data for the temperature, humidity, etc. And these two places are, for me, not in the best place in the city because one is very near to the coast and, all the time, receives the breeze of the river, and the other is in the middle of a big park. We are working with this kind of information that is not the best information for the city or doesn't represent the real temperature or humidity or these kinds of things that we have in Buenos Aires.

I work a lot in information systems, since a long time ago, and I know that we need more data, more long-series data in order to analyze that and try to planify, to do good planification. For this, we are doing these kind of things in the city. In my area, we were thinking that we need more information. Then, we are working in different parts of the city, getting data – not the kind of data that the national meteorological surveys, but some data that permits us to understand processes, for example, the influence of the green in the degrees of temperature, for example. 

David 39:23

We know Buenos Aires, though, has done very interesting things in some other areas. You have a program called Citizens Ready Against Climate Change. Can you talk about that program so the listeners can understand how, at least, Buenos Aires is helping to prepare city residents against these extreme heat events? 

Patricia Himschoot 39:44 

Buenos Aires is an ageing city. You know, we have a lot of older people, like in most of the different cities in the world. There are a lot of older people that live alone and don't have anybody that can pay attention when there is a heat wave in the city, and you know that the older people have some problems with they don't feel thirst. They can suffer for the situation a lot or they don't feel the symptoms of heat stroke.

Then, we began to try to see what to do when these long heat waves appear in the city and they prepared this program in which we do some workshops for prevention and personal care to deal with heat waves, explained. We do this. The first thing that adults understand— the older adults understand climate change – the causes and the consequences. We know that older people know about the climate change because they lived in the past and they feel, in their bodies, the difference, the change in the climate.

We do that in our workshops. We talk with them about this kind of change, that they know what was in the past, the climate in Buenos Aires, what kind of things changed for them, and it's very interesting. We have a lot of information about that, and we are really interested to do something that we call Memories of Climate that are the histories that they tell us about the past in Buenos Aires, and try that they explain to the young people that life was different in the past, predated with the climate. 

David 41:41

That really builds bonds between young people and seniors, as well. It's much bigger than just helping people prepare for climate change. It's very interesting.

Patricia Himschoot 41:52 

[gentle music] And, we want to do some communication. We are trying to get funds for that, but... Well, we are in that process. And, the other interesting thing, we prepare people for the heat waves – the adults, the older adults. We give care, all the different things that they need to do. They need to drink water. They need to take care of the temperature in the place that they live.

You know that here, in Argentina, the... Well, I don't know in the rest of the countries, but here, the older people, the pensions are very bad and people sometimes don't have air conditioning in the house or things like that. We try that they understand that they need to do something with the temperature because they are very, very vulnerable to that. And, we go to different places in the city, that there are a lot of other older people together. We have some day centres for adults. We have some retirement centres. There are some groups in the public spaces that meet in the summer, and we work all the spring and the summer, trying to do the most workshops that we can in order to get people to understand. [music fades out] 

David 43:12

I understand you're also working with some low-income groups through a program called Barrio 20, although I should probably say that in Spanish, shouldn't I? 

Patricia Himschoot 43:21 

Barrio Veinte.

David 43:22

Barrio Veinte. Can you talk about that a little bit? 

Patricia Himschoot 43:26 

Yeah. Well, that problem began. For that, we were talking that we don't have data. In our shanty towns, there are very few green spaces when there are maybe in the city, in that place, and it's really very, very difficult – very hot. Then, we began to talk and to think that maybe, if we try to get information about that, we can plan better, different solutions, nature-based solutions, and work to do these solutions in the neighbourhood, based in information – in real information.

Then, there are some programs in Buenos Aires that try to implement nature-based solutions in that Barrio 20, and we decided to build a network of thermometers in order to have information about temperature and humidity in the town, and we chose some places that have a lot of vegetation, and we put other thermometers in places that you don't have any green and you have all the day the sun, in the warmth.

Then, for the last year, we are getting the data of that network, and we work with the neighbourhoods, with people that are responsible for the thermometers, and we understand which places have more problems, etc., and we are getting really a long series of data. We get the data on the days in the year for five minutes. Each five minutes, we get the data and we are building and understanding of what happens, and we work with the people that do the change in the organization of that Barrio 20, the government people, trying that they understand where to do better intervention in order to reduce the temperature the most. 

David 45:36

Can you speak about some of the other initiatives that Buenos Aires is doing through your work and through its climate and health working group? 

Patricia Himschoot 45:47 

In the last two years, we are working in a roundtable—health and climate change roundtable—because we notice that it would be very important to work with all the areas in the government that participate in the health risk. In these roundtables, participate through the Scientific Academy that knows about heat waves and dengue, because these are the two principal subjects that we work in the roundtable.

Now, in this moment, we are working on an elaborate heat plan for Buenos Aires City because Buenos Aires City doesn't have a heat plan. [driving music] We are taking a lot of experience of other cities in the C40 network. We are learning a lot from Miami and from Sydney. We are beginning to write the plan. The next year, we will be updating our climate plan for the city and then the heat plan could be a very important part of that. We notice that we need some protocol for workers in the street when we have heat waves. Then, we are writing or elaborating together this to implement this, this summer.

You know that there were a lot of workers that died during heat waves in other parts of the world. For that, it's important, especially for the construction workers. Here, there are a lot of construction workers that, during the heat wave are, all the day, working in the sun, and there are not protocols for that. We are working in some strategy for the dengue that is new for Buenos Aires City, and in one month, more or less, began the problem. We are trying to implement an emergency and alert system and trying to understand. We have some experiments in the city, trying to understand where there are positive cases in the city in order to go and do some emergency plan in that place. [music ends] 

David 48:02

The dengue sounds, to me, really serious and, you know, I can sort of picture when you're working with the Barrio 20 and getting the data and changing the buildings and planting trees and, you know, thinking ahead, helping seniors know what to do, I can picture all that. It's harder to picture how to deal with something like dengue. You must be quite concerned about this. 

Patricia Himschoot 48:33 

Well, we are learning because it's very new for us, the dengue, you know. We know that it's very important, the campaigns—the massive campaigns—in order that the population don't have some water near to them because, you know that, in the dengue, you have the larvaes that live in water – clear water. The mosquito for dengue is very peridomiciliary . The mosquito lives near to the people. Then, if you have some water in your balcony, in your house with flowers, that is not good. You need to toss out these kinds of things in your house. Then, you need to work a lot with the people. People need to understand that and do most of the work and need to take responsibility for that.

But then, we have another problem, that you need to improve your health system because, when you have an epidemic of dengue, the system is collapsed. You have a lot of impacts related with that in the health system and, you know, something that happened last year was that, because the number was so high that this appeared, the repellent for the mosquitoes, then people don't have the repellent that can be used in order to avoid that. 

David 49:55

It sold out in the stores. 

Patricia Himschoot 49:57 

Yes. So now, I think like that. Then, for this, for this summer, we are trying to do some planification in that and work with enterprises to try to understand that we need it not-so-now, but the thing is increasing and we need more products and we began to work on the campaign in September, before the peak of the disease appears in the city. 

David 50:30

The challenges Buenos Aires is facing, dengue is-- well, they're all a real worry, but there are some commonalities with other cities, certainly on the heat and the storms. You're a member of C40's Cool Cities Network. Can you speak about how being part of a network supports Buenos Aires' work with heat and how that network helps the cities learn from each other about how to address these really significant public health challenges, whether it's heat, storms, dengue, other vector-borne diseases, or anything at all?

Patricia Himschoot 51:08 

Yes. Like I say, recently, we are working with learning a lot from Miami and Sydney in our heat plan. That was really very helpful for us because we don't have any idea how to do that, and we learned a lot. Now, we have the plan, based on that plan. Then, we work a lot with Barcelona, taking their experience. We implement a network of climate shelters in the city that provides a comfortable place for residents in events of high temperature and heat waves. 

Working with Barcelona too, we are working with the data for Barrio 20. We are working on trying to get the heat index in order to get an alert of the heat wave more precise, and Barcelona has a lot of experience in that and we are working with them to build that index because, you know, Barcelona takes the index, or some cities in the United States, but need to do some arranging, and the same happened with us. And, all the time, we participate in the webinars for the Cool City Network. For us, it's a very important subject and we like a lot that C40 is doing so much work in that area. 

David 52:34

What does the idea of a good life mean for you and, from your perspective, what does the idea of a good life mean for the residents of Buenos Aires? 

Patricia Himschoot 52:46 

[pensive music] Yes. Well, for me, a good life is related with trying to get some nice places to see, to meet with my friends. A space that is safe when some impacts appear, like heat waves or floods, etc. All of us understand that we need contact with nature and we need to go to green spaces and ensure that. That is a good life, for me.

I am a biologist. I love nature and live in a city that is very big. I live on the 21st floor and I see all the city from my balcony and I say, "Wow. It's incredible, this place." I don't know. It's so big and so interesting, so many buildings, but if we have good and big green spaces, it could be very nice and, for me, it's very important that all the people can take the same opportunities to ensure that. 

David 53:52

Well, I think that's so well-put. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today, but more importantly for your ongoing work, which is both necessary and transformative, and we really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us. [music continues then ends]

[energetic, upbeat music] Heat is an existential threat to all of us because it can substantially impact both our health and the health of the planet. Some scientists have reported that we have already broken the 1.5° limit of heating above pre-industrial levels, and this means the challenges we've heard from this episode's guests are only going to deepen.

But, Buenos Aires and other cities around the globe are doing important work in this area to protect their most vulnerable residents and to safeguard the health of people and the planet. But, so many questions still remain. What can we do to protect ourselves? How high will temperatures have to rise before national governments take the phase-out of fossil fuels seriously? And, if we have indeed breached the 1.5° ceiling outlined by the Paris Agreement, will we need to rename this podcast? Only time will tell. [music continues then fades out]

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] On next week's episode, we'll be travelling from the Americas to the African continent where we'll speak with youth climate leader and activist, Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, as well as C40's Regional Director for Africa, Dorah Modise. We will delve into how the fossil fuel industry and its infrastructure are having catastrophic impacts on African ecosystems and communities, but also what efforts are being made to transition away to cleaner and healthier renewables. See you then.

[Cities 1.5 main theme music continues] This has been Cities 1.5, leading global change through local climate action. I'm David Miller. I was the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, and I know, firsthand, the role cities can play in solving the climate crisis. Currently, I'm the Editor in Chief of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, published by the University of Toronto Press in collaboration with the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy, where I'm also the Managing Director. C40's mission is to use the voices and the actions of its member mayors to help the world avoid climate breakdown.

[music continues] Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press in association with the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy and C40 Cities. This podcast is produced by Jessica Schmidt, and edited by Morgane Chambrin. Our executive producers are Peggy Whitfield and Calli Eliopoulos. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder.

The fight for a healthier world is closer than you think. To learn more, visit the show's website, linked in the episode notes. See you next time. [main theme music continues then ends]