Cooling Down Earth’s Cities

With recent record-breaking summer heat waves, spiking urban temperatures have become a major concern for cities tackling climate change. Densely populated areas are warming far faster than their rural and suburban surroundings, creating dangerous “urban heat islands” that threaten public health, increase energy consumption, and disproportionately impact city dwellers with lower incomes.

Meanwhile, designing buildings to protect occupants from climate extremes—while managing energy demand—has become increasingly complex, and especially challenging in the developing world.

“Closing the skills and capacity gap in those markets is one of the most important levers the sector has,” Hanane Hafraoui, GlobalABC lead program manager at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told The Earth & I.

Guest Lecture 'Cooler and Fairer Cities: Heat Mitigation, Adaptation and Inclusive Urban Greening

 

Heatwaves spark interest in Gulf-style extreme cooling (Interview in Financial Times)

At sunrise, before Dubai’s megamalls open their doors to the general public, people are already bounding along marbled corridors past the luxury boutiques that forged the city’s reputation as a shoppers’ paradise. But these are not customers looking for bargains: the emirate’s cavernous shopping centres double as air-conditioned running tracks during the summer, with runners gathering at 6am to escape outside temperatures approaching 40C and compete in races of up to 10km. 

The race to cool buildings with less electricity

America's answer to hotter summers has overwhelmingly been more air conditioning, and engineers are now looking for ways to keep people cool without driving up electricity demand.

Why it matters: The need for cooling is surging. The issue isn't just how to generate more electricity — it's how to use less of it and ease demand when grids are most strained.

Interview to Discover Magazine

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Discover Magazine about the growing impact of air conditioning on cities, its implications for energy use and urban heat, and the exciting opportunities offered by innovative passive cooling technologies. We discussed how sustainable cooling solutions can help create more resilient, comfortable, and climate-responsive urban environments. Many thanks to Discover Magazine for the invitation and for highlighting this important topic.

An Environmental Crisis: Urban Overheating with Professor Matthaios Santamouris

 

Our cities are becoming heat traps. Every year, streets, rooftops and buildings trap more heat, pushing temperatures higher, making extreme heat one of the fastest growing threats to urban life today.

Professor Matthaios Santamouris has spent his career developing the technologies and strategies helping cities survive rising temperatures. His work confronts a critical question:

Can our cities survive the heat they’ve created?

Heat-Proofing Cities Becomes Mandatory Amid Global Heatwaves by Joe Ennis

When I wrote this article, I was very much thinking of Australian cities. Or those in the Middle East. But we're now seeing persistent highs above 30 degrees in Ireland. 45 in France. In Germany, the Rhine is running dry and everywhere heat-related deaths are soaring. Heat-proofing our cities is not optional anymore. With thanks to Professor Mat Santamouris AM and Jessica Holz CPEng RPEQ.