In short…
- Local and regional governments are uniquely positioned to act on extreme heat – and the solutions are already there!
- Heat governance does not require a new department, it needs a cross-sectorial reflection on how to integrate heat mitigation and adaptation in all city projects.
- Partnerships, with international organizations, national governments, civil society organizations, are key to develop, adapt, scale up, finance, implement heat action projects
- International organizations have a wide variety of tools that can help local and regional governments improve their resilience to extreme heat
En 2 June 2026 the Global Cities Hub and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center co-hosted an event to mark Día de Acción contra el Calor (HAD), a global day of action and awareness on extreme heat. The theme of HAD 2026 was indoor heat. The serious health implications from exposure to heat inside homes, or in public and privately managed facilities such as schools, health facilities, prisons, and care homes should not be underestimated.
The event aimed to share best practices, scalable solutions, and tools to help local and regional governments address heat resilience effectively.
Anh Thu Duong, Co-director of the Global Cities Hub, set the stage by emphasizing the urban dimension of climate action and underscored the importance of gobernanza in addressing heat.
Aynur Kadihasanoglu, Senior Urban Specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, followed by sharing the growth of Heat Action Day as a global movement. With over 200 participants, including cities, NGOs, and UN agencies, the event has become a platform for sharing knowledge and driving action. She announced an upcoming WMO report on indoor heat, set to be published in mid-June 2026, and stressed the need for local partnerships to tackle heat challenges effectively.
Heat governance in Cape Town: a structure to replicate?
El Chief Heat Officer (CHO) of the City of Cape Town, Albert Ferreira, highlighted the city cross-sectoral approach to heat governance. In fact, he serves also as Manager for Resilience and Climate Change and, in his capacity as CHO, he coordinates and monitors the city departments to ensure that heat mitigation and adaption are considered. The city’s Climate Change Action Plan (2021) and the Heat Action Plan (2023) act as the overall frameworks for implementation. Implementation, however, is decentralized! The various city departments (disaster risk management, urban planning, health, etc.) integrate heat resilience within their departments’ projects and programmes.
Ferreira highlighted the importance of partnerships with national agencies, the private sector, academia, and international organizations like UNDP. Responding to a question from the public, he highlighted the importance of internal cooperación within the municipal administration to ensure that all departments work together towards a common goal.
Ferreira also addressed the theme of workplace heat exposure. The built environment in a neighbourhood matter for both outdoor and indoor heat exposure and to better target policies that reduce the heat island effect, Cape Town is working with the South African Weather Service to have more localised data on temperature (Heat Adaptation Benefits for Vulnerable groups In Africa (HABVIA) project). The physical structure of buildings matters for indoor temperature and that is where partnerships are key: for instance, Cape Town is working with the University of Cape Town to paint roofs with heat-reflective paint in informal settlements to reduce indoor temperatures.
What tools are available for local and regional governments to Beat the Heat?
Elsa Lefèvre, Program Manager at UNEP’s Subnational Climate Action Unit, introduced the Beat the Heat initiative. This global effort focuses on scaling sustainable cooling and addressing extreme heat through three key areas: heat mapping and planning, nature-based solutions and passive building design, and sustainable cooling equipment. With over 230 cities involved, the initiative provides tools like the Handbook on Urban Heat Management in the Global South, developed in collaboration with the World Bank and UN-Habitat, to guide cities in implementing heat resilience strategies.
Lefèvre explained how Beat the Heat helps cities translate global frameworks into local action by facilitating matchmaking between cities and partners. For example, the World Resources Institute Cool Cities Lab offers heat maps in partnership with Google, which provides data on roof albedo. She emphasized the need for context-specific, inclusive approaches that address both short-term fixes and long-term planning.
In response to a public question, Lefèvre discussed how cities can redesign governance, infrastructure, and social protection systems to address both outdoor and indoor heat stress. She highlighted the importance of combining governance reform, climate-responsive infrastructurey adapted social protection systems to create a holistic approach.
How can cities better protect workers from heat?
Nausheen H. Anwar, Urban Climate Resilience Lead at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and a member of the WMO-WHO Technical Working Group on indoor heat risks to health, presented key findings from the WMO-WHO Informe sobre el cambio climático y el estrés térmico en el lugar de trabajo. She emphasized that heat is a present-day crisis, already affecting 2.4 billion workers globally.
Workplace heat stress is a public health and an economic challenge. The consequences of heat are not only heat exhaustion and heat stroke, but also cardiovascular issues, kidney function, mental well-being, and productivity loss. Indoor heat is an equally important concern, as if indoor temperatures remain high, people have no opportunity to recover physiologically. This is particularly concerning for vulnerable groups such as the elderly, low-income households, and informal and home-based workers. In this context, indoor heat is a social equity issue. Indoor heat is also a gender issue, as women often bear the double burden of unpaid care work in overheated homes while trying to maintain income-generating activities.
Local and regional governments, Anwar underlined, are uniquely positioned to act. They have a range of solutions that already exist! These include urban cooling (nature-based solutions and urban greening), reforming building standards (passive cooling, ventilation), and enhancing social protections (cooling centers, heat risk integration into planning). She also highlighted existing tools and support for local governments, such as the WMO-WHO Climate Change and Workplace Heat Stress reportEl Global Heat Health Information Network, Extreme Heat Risk Governance Framework and Toolkity el UNEP Cool Coalition.
In response to a public question about managing indoor heat in resource-scarce areas, Anwar shared insights from her work in Pakistan, where indoor temperatures in informal settlements can reach 35°C or higher. The global-to-local connection is key. Leveraging data and knowledge from international and national organizations while keeping local community at the centre of the transformation, so that they help shape how the evidence is transformed into local action.
Heat Action: how can a city start?
Albert Ferreira advised other cities to leverage networks of chief heat officers and adopt practical examples from cities like Athens (education and outreach), Melbourne (spatial planning), and Freetown (urban greening).
Appointing a Chief Heat Officer does equal a new heat department, but results in a cross-sectorial reflection on how to integrate heat mitigation and adaptation in the work of already established departments.
Additional resources and relevant links
- 2025: La resistencia al calor empieza a nivel local
- 2024: Las ciudades deben vencer al calor, ¡pero se enfrentan a muchos retos!
- Beat the Heat initiative
- Cool Cities Lab
- Extreme Heat Risk Governance Framework and Toolkit
- Global Heat Health Information Network
- Handbook on Urban Heat Management in the Global South
- Día de Acción contra el Calor
- Heat Adaptation Benefits for Vulnerable groups In Africa (HABVIA) project
- Heat Adaptive Architecture Design Competition (HAAD)
- Heat: Through the eyes of the most vulnerable-Perceptions and pathways to action
- UNEP Cool Coalition
- WMO-WHO Climate Change and Workplace Heat Stress report