Now the leaves have started to fall, Europe can’t afford to forget the summer heat

Heat records were smashed across Europe, tourist attractions were closed, red alerts were placed in 23 Italian cities and 1,200 children were evacuated from a Greek summer camp to escape wildfires.

Heatwaves are set to become even more frequent and severe, with the number of cities exposed to extreme temperatures estimated to nearly triple by 2050, and certain groups including those on lower income, older adults, infants and people with underlying health issues.

European cities have been pioneering heat resilience in many ways — with Athens being one of the first in the world to appoint a Chief Heat Officer and cities like Seville naming heatwaves to boost public awareness.

However, Europe can’t leave it to state and city leaders to tackle urban heat. The issue of urban heat islands needs to also be addressed at a street and neighbourhood level, by those shaping the built environment. And nature needs to be at the heart of the solution.

The built environment is a huge contributor to increasing city temperatures. We’ve pushed out nature, concreted our streets and built high in steel and glass, creating what is known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect — where urban temperatures are far higher than their rural surroundings.

We recently launched our Urban Heat Snapshot to encourage city leaders, urban designers, and all those shaping the built environment to better understand how their designs can mitigate urban hot spots, particularly for the most vulnerable communities. 

The snapshot maps the most extreme “hot spots” in six major cities — from Madrid to Cairo — around the world. It found Madrid’s urban centre has the most extreme UHI “hot spot”, with temperatures 8.5°C hotter than its rural surroundings.

And importantly it