Cool Spaces and addressing inequity in provision

Although urbanisation is projected to continue increasing in the decades ahead^[1], it is estimated that approximately half of the world’s stock of buildings that will exist through to the middle of the 21st Century has already been constructed^[2]. There is, therefore, a pressing need to adapt both the existing urban and rural built environment to rising ambient temperatures and more frequent, prolonged, severe heatwaves. However, to do so will require considerable time as well as substantial financial and human resources, necessitating, where building stock is inadequate, the temporary provision of relief from high temperatures as climates change. The latter will be particularly important for the most vulnerable in geographical areas of highest risk.

Cool Spaces in the urban Global North 

Examples of urban local authorities meeting this need are already emerging worldwide including, in the UK, the Mayor of London’s recently launched (2023) network of “cool spaces”, in which people can seek shelter from intense sunshine and cool down on hot days^[3]. The spaces identified in the scheme are typically municipal buildings such as libraries and leisure centers, as well as religious buildings and museums, and are located by the public through the use of an online interactive map. To be categorised as a Tier One cool space, the building must be free of charge to enter during the day; cooler inside than outside; staffed; and provide freely available water and a seating space. Tier Two spaces, which may be open less frequently or are not as accessible, and external spaces where shade is provided by trees and drinking water is freely available, are also presented to users.

A similar network is provided by the City of Toronto^[4], with more than 300 locations active during the hot weather season, and in the USA the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is supporting school based cool spaces and clean air centres in neighbourhoods disproportionally affected by extreme heat in Pima County, Arizona^[5]. In the same programme, the EPA has also provided technical assistance to create localised urban sheltered spaces in response to heat and wildfire events in Multnomah County, Oregon. Both initiatives have particular focus on vulnerable communities.

Paris is taking a slightly different approach with a network of over 800 ‘cool air islands’. These are primarily external spaces which were defined by the not-for-profit Paris Urbanism Agency, Apur^[6], and like the London example can be located via an interactive online map^[7]. This is part of a wider strategy to address the requirements of the Paris Agreement and deliver the third (2018) Paris Climate Plan^[8]. The spaces identified encompass:

• 565 green and wooded spaces including gardens, parks, woods and cemeteries, all of which are colour coded according to their level of ‘coolness’ (with 153 of these green spaces open at night);
• 36 bathing sites including swimming pools, aquatic centres, and other outside locations;
• 25 places with mist sprays and water games, including water mirrors and spray mists;
• 150 establishments open to the public which are naturally cool, such as churches;
• 46 establishments open to the public and cool including museums and libraries.

Most notable in the Paris case is the emphasis on nature-based cool spaces and that many of the ‘islands’ are linked by walkways which are shaded and often adjacent to water and/or pass through cool subterranean pedestrian tunnels. The emphasis on natural and passive cooling is important in the context of the need to transition to the deployment of clean cooling approaches and technologies^[9]. Indeed, more broadly across all such programmes, identified cool spaces that are reliant on active cooling should clearly be considered for retrofitting with clean cooling solutions. 

Inequity in responding to heat impacts in the built environment

Exposure to heatwaves has now reached near global proportions, and the phenomena is rapidly expanding in frequency, intensity and impacted geography^[10]. In parallel, climate change is also increasing the frequency of other extreme weather events and the occurrence of compound events, such as concurrent heatwaves and droughts, which can significantly overwhelm the adaptive capacity of developing nations and increase the loss of life, livelihoods, and infrastructure^[11]. Moreover, vulnerability to such events remains disproportionately skewed towards the Global South where population numbers, living space densities, and the increase in Cooling Degree Days^[12] are all projected to be high, and there is a lower level of access to cooling, power shortages are frequent, and resources for adaptation are limited compared with the Global North.

One stark set of statistics highlighting this North-South inequity is that while the per capita energy consumption for space cooling (in kWh per annum) is estimated at 1,878 in U.S.A. and 843 in Japan, it remains as low as 35 and 69 in Africa and India respectively, despite higher and longer exposure to extreme temperatures in the latter two^[13]. The inequity is further emphasised by the fact that despite its relatively milder temperatures, Europe records per capita power consumption for cooling higher than the total amount of electricity used in buildings by a person in Africa^[14]. In terms of penetration of air conditioning in residential dwellings, the estimate for South Africa stands at just 6%, while over 90% of households in the USA and Japan already had units installed by 2018.

This inequity underscores the urgent need to provide cool spaces in the urban and rural landscapes of the developing economies of the Global South. However, examples of provision are to-date less common than in the Global North and there is much work to be done to raise awareness of the need and deliver programmes similar to those instigated by London, Toronto, Paris and the EPA in Arizona and Oregon.

One urban example can be found in Ahmedabad, an Indian city of more than 8.5 million people, which launched a Heat Action Plan (HAP) in 2016^[15] that includes the provision of cooling centres such as temples, public buildings, and malls during a ‘heat alert’. In contrast to the spaces identified in London, Toronto and Paris, rather than providing the location of these to the public via a web-based map, Ahmedabad uses text alerts, WhatsApp mobile messages, and traditional media channels, and the plan includes a focus on access to shaded areas for outdoor workers, slum communities, and other vulnerable populations.

For the rural Global South, Community Cooling Hubs (CCHs) offer an opportunity to provide cool spaces for local populations to use for relief from extreme heat during periods of high temperature. These innovative centres, which are being demonstrated by the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-chain (ACES) on-the-ground in Rwanda and Kenya, provide integrated clean cooling based systems that enable food producing communities to meet a broad portfolio of aggregated cooling needs in a highly accessible, efficient, affordable, resilient, and sustainable manner^[16]. Local ‘core’ cooling services ranging from food and vaccine storage to the provision of thermal comfort can be delivered while simultaneously reducing the economic and environmental costs associated with doing so.

More specifically, CCHs can support farmers, growers and fishers in reducing post-production food losses and connecting to distant markets, increase livestock productivity through providing access to veterinary vaccines, and ensure that the wider community has continuing access to life-saving vaccines, domestic refrigeration, properly cooled health facilities and educational spaces, and, additionally, cool spaces for relief from high temperatures during extreme heat events. The CCH concept not only provides an opportunity to realise a leapfrog to clean cooling in rural communities of the Global South, but through radical innovative thinking can equally be applied to urban environments as well as in the Global North.