CRI Heat Report

'I Can't Cool'

Extreme Heat and Human Rights in the Context of Climate Change

May 2024

Summary

“Sometimes I feel like my whole body is shaking and I also feel dizzy when I perform physical labor [in the heat] like washing cars. I also get tired easily, but I have to work because if I don’t, I won’t earn a living.” — A man who washes cars in Karachi¹

The acceleration of global warming has resulted in rising temperatures and an unprecedented frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves worldwide, creating a human rights crisis that all levels of governments, companies, and others with responsibility for the health and welfare of human beings must take urgent steps to address.

This report examines the consequences and risks of extreme heat through a human rights lens and offers concrete recommendations for actions that can be taken – starting now – to protect populations from harm. Climate Rights International compiled this report to identify and understand the many different rights that are put at risk by rising temperatures and exposure to extreme heat as a result of climate change. Viewing climate change through a human rights lens can help identify actionable solutions, and the responsibilities of governments, companies, and others to act.

People around the world, both old and young, are at risk of experiencing heat-related harms. As Aprdous Hossain, a 74-year-old widow in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which now regularly experiences days with temperatures exceeding 40°C (104°F), told Climate Rights International:

I feel very bad this year because of the heat. I am feeling very bad, very sick, I am not feeling well. Because I am too hot. I cannot cool.²

A nine-year-old student in Karachi, which suffers from frequent heat waves, told Climate Rights International that the heat made it hard to learn:

I feel like I am not able to study properly or concentrate because the classroom is so hot, and all of the kids are so tired because of the heat. We are not able to learn or pay attention to what the teacher is saying because of that.³

Dr. Aliya Saidi, a doctor in Karachi, explained the kinds of cases she is seeing:

Patients come to us with various symptoms of heat-related illness. These include excessive sweating, low blood pressure, panting, dizziness, restlessness, vomiting, muscle ache, headache, and exhaustion.⁴

Climate Change and Rising Heat

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record.⁵ This record marks an unfortunate trend of rising global averages, as the last nine years have been the hottest ever recorded; and each of those years experienced global averages more than 1°C (1.8°F) above the preindustrial level.⁶ The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the authoritative body on climate science, has indicated with high confidence that human-induced climate change is the main driver of the increase in average temperatures in recent history.⁷

Human-induced climate change also plays a major role in heat waves.⁸ While there is no standard definition for a heat wave, or extreme heat event, the term is used to describe prolonged periods of extreme heat outside the normal range of temperatures for a certain region. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative has found that many heat waves in recent history were made much more likely by climate change.⁹ For example, the WWA found that the April heat wave that devastated much of Asia in 2023, causing deaths, widespread hospitalizations, and school closures, was made 30 times more likely by climate change.¹⁰ It also found that a deadly heatwave in the Sahel and Western Africa in March and April 2024 “would not have occurred” in the absence of human-induced climate change,¹¹ and that the devastating heat wave in western North America in June 2022 would have been “virtually impossible” without it.¹²

A recent study found that between 2018 and 2022 people globally experienced, on average, 86 days of health-threatening high temperatures annually.¹³ Sixty percent of these temperatures were made more than twice as likely to occur by human-caused climate change.¹⁴

NOAA graphic depicting the 10-warmest years on record (1850-2022), and 2023, which had the highest global land and ocean temperature for January–December in the 1850–2023 record.¹⁵

Rising Heat and Human Rights

Extreme heat and extreme heat events threaten a wide range of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, education, and a healthy environment. Those most at risk include children, women, older people, those with disabilities, those living in poverty, outdoor workers, and a range of already marginalized populations.¹⁶

Some groups, including children, chronically ill people, older people, and those on certain medications, can be biologically more susceptible to the impacts of extreme heat than others.¹⁷ Other groups, such as women, incarcerated people, migrants, people living in poverty, and people living in social isolation, can be more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme heat as a result of social factors.¹⁸

Outdoor workers and those working in factories or other indoor spaces not designed for heat are also at increased risk because of their comparatively high levels of exposure to elevated temperatures. The International Labor Organization (ILO) recently estimated that at least 2.1 billion workers each year are exposed to excessive heat in the workplace, resulting in millions of occupational injuries and nearly 19,000 deaths.¹⁹

People living in cities, too, face increased risk of exposure to high temperature extremes, in part due to the urban heat island effect, wherein some areas of cities absorb and retain heat more than surrounding areas due to dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other urban features. Researchers have documented more than 6°C (10°F) differences between some urban neighborhoods and surrounding rural areas in both high- and low-income countries.²⁰ Urban heat exposure has increased significantly in recent history. One study that assessed data from more than 13,000 cities around the world found that urban heat exposure increased nearly 200 percent between 1983 and 2016.²¹ By 2050, 68 percent of the global population is expected to live in urban areas.²² As the urban population increases, so too will the number of people exposed to increased risk of high temperature extremes.

Across all groups, heat impacts will weigh the heaviest on the poorest populations with the fewest resources to adapt. Locally, low-income residents often have greater levels of heat exposure and can be more likely to experience heat-stress.²³ Globally, heat exposure over the last decade was more than 40% higher in countries in the lowest-quartile by income compared to the highest-quartile.²⁴ People in these low-income countries will face greater challenges adapting to rising temperatures than those in high-income countries, in part due to unequal access to cooling. A study by Sustainable Energy for All, an initiative launched by the United Nations in 2011, found that that one in seven people globally (1.2 billion people) do not have adequate access to cooling – threatening their ability to survive extreme heat, store nutritious food, or receive a safe vaccine.²⁵ The nine countries with the largest number of people at high heat-related risk due to inadequate access to cooling are India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sudan, and Brazil.²⁶

The intersecting climate and human rights crises are going to become progressively more challenging. Global temperatures are likely to continue to surge – fueled by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, deforestation, and periodic and naturally occurring El Niño events.²⁷ Studies and models project that average global temperatures will reach or exceed 1.5°C (2.7°F) of warming much more rapidly than initially predicted and that levels of warming will likely be much higher than 1.5ºC if countries do not increase – and proactively implement – their commitments under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.²⁸ Without urgent and effective action, significant areas of the world are likely to become simply uninhabitable, resulting in widespread mortality, large-scale human migration, or both.²⁹

Recent Occurrences of Extreme Heat

Recent extreme heat events.³⁰

Governments, Companies, and Others Must Take Action to Protect Against Foreseeable Harm from Extreme Heat

Governments have an obligation under international law to protect individuals against the foreseeable risks to their human rights due to extreme heat, including those caused by third parties such as businesses. Businesses, too, have an obligation to avoid infringing on the human rights of others, and to address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved.

To prevent worst-case outcomes, it is critical that governments redouble their efforts to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly those from the burning of fossil fuels, protect carbon sinks, and invest in renewable energy.

At the same time, it is also critically necessary that governments, companies and those with responsibility for vulnerable populations implement heat-specific adaptation interventions to protect those under their care or control from the real risks to their human rights that will result from unavoidable heat extremes. Heat waves are already threatening and will increasingly threaten the health, environment, education, water, food, housing, and livelihoods of those alive today — and of future generations. In many areas, and for vulnerable groups, these risks will be truly life-threatening.

There is a large and growing body of knowledge regarding the steps that can be taken by governments (national, regional, and local), by companies and other employers, and by those running care homes, schools, prisons, and other institutional settings to reduce the risks posed by extreme heat to people. Yet many remain woefully unprepared, and failure to act will have devastating consequences for those they should be protecting.

A full set of detailed recommendations is available in Chapter VI.

Methodology

This report is informed by a combination of literature review and primary research.

Climate Rights International conducted a narrative review of the existing literature on heat and related harms through May 2024. We searched PubMed, Embase, NexisUni, PAIS Index and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed academic papers and reviewed citations of selected articles when necessary. We also reviewed relevant grey literature, including policy documents, media publications, and NGO reports.

CRI also conducted interviews with some of those affected by extreme heat. We interviewed nine people living in Dhaka, Bangladesh between June 10 and July 8, 2023, and eleven people living in Karachi, Pakistan, between September 13 and September 15, 2023. Interviewees included ten women, six men and four children. We also spoke with individuals working on issues related to heat at a range of international organizations.

All interviewees provided informed consent to participate in the interview. In some cases, we have given pseudonyms and withheld identifying information of interviewees at their request or, for children, at the request of their parent or guardian. No financial incentives were provided to interviewees.

I. Impact of Extreme Heat on Humans and Human Rights

Extreme heat can lead to violations of a wide range of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, education, and a safe and healthy work environment, among others. The warming of the planet is also a significant threat to the rights of future generations. The substance of each of these rights, and the ways in which extreme heat can lead to violations of these rights, is discussed below.

Right to Health

Climate change poses a serious threat to both physical and mental health. According to the IPCC, increases in extreme heat events in all regions of the world have led to increased human illness and death.³¹

Exposure to extreme heat can take a toll on the human body. While “optimum” internal temperatures vary slightly from person to person, the core body temperature needs to stay within a narrow range of 36-37°C (97-99°F) to protect organs and for cells to function best. When the body becomes too hot, blood vessels in the skin dilate and heat is dissipated via the evaporation of sweat, which cools the surface of the skin, liberating heat transferred from the core.

High humidity can hinder this natural cooling process. In dry climates, sweat evaporation can continue to help cool the body even at relatively high temperatures, but that process becomes less effective as humidity increases. In very humid conditions, sweat doesn’t evaporate; instead, it just drips off the skin without cooling it. This is why dry heat can feel cooler than humid heat. The higher the combination of heat and humidity, the higher the risk of heat-related illness.

One of the most widely accepted ways to measure heat stress in humans is through a metric called the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), a standard that was initially developed in the 1950s as part of a campaign to lower the risk of heat disorders during US military training. WBGT takes into account a variety of factors, including temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle, and cloud cover, to measure human heat stress in direct sunlight.³²

Under high WBGT, the risk of experiencing heat exhaustion increases. Heat exhaustion occurs when the body cannot get rid of excess heat and the internal body temperature rises. Signs of heat exhaustion include fatigue, nausea, headache, a fast heart rate, and shallow breathing. Those suffering from heat exhaustion must be given hydration and shade, or risk developing potentially fatal heatstroke.

Dehydration from heat can also have a serious impact on body organs, particularly the kidneys. When the body is dehydrated, the brain sends a signal to stop circulating as much blood to the kidneys to avoid losing fluid in the form of urine. The kidneys quickly become deprived of oxygen, which damages kidney cells and can cause acute kidney disease or, in extreme cases, kidney failure.³³ The massive increase in chronic kidney disease affecting young and middle-aged construction and agricultural workers is believed to be the result of repeated kidney injury caused by dehydration and heat stress due to heavy workload.³⁴

In Central America, for example, chronic kidney disease of unknown cause (CKDu) has killed at least 20,000 young men over the last two decades, most of whom were sugarcane workers along the Pacific coast.³⁵ A study of the Chichigalpa municipality of Nicaragua, where chronic kidney damage plagues the local population, found that increasing measures to prevent occupational heat stress, including shade breaks and improved hydration, appeared to reduce the risk of kidney injury among workers.³⁶

Extreme heat can also exacerbate existing chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, cerebrovascular disease, kidney disease, and diabetes.³⁷ People with cardiovascular issues are especially at risk because of the strain heat puts on the heart. For those with pre-existing conditions that affect circulation or the ability to sweat, such as diabetes, heat can become dangerous at much lower temperatures than it does for a healthy adult.

In addition to harming physical health, extreme heat can also impact mental health.³⁸ Heat not only fuels feelings like irritability and anger, but may also exacerbate mental illnesses, such as anxiety, schizophrenia, and depression.³⁹ Older adults, adolescents, and people with pre-existing mental illnesses are particularly vulnerable. Moreover, medications prescribed to treat or manage some mental health conditions, including widely-used lithium, can also impair the body’s ability to sweat and cool itself.⁴⁰

How Heat Affects the Body

Image by Union of Concerned Scientists.⁴¹

Exposure to extreme heat can also negatively impact and alter human behavior. Heat waves, for example, have been associated with an increase in intimate partner violence and online hate speech;⁴² and researchers have found an association between high temperatures and hospitalizations for behavioral disorders.⁴³ Extreme heat can also discourage healthy behaviors, like exercising, which can result in cascading health impacts.⁴⁴

The scale and nature of the resulting health impact depend not only on the mental and physical health of the individual, but also on the timing, intensity, and duration of a temperature event, the level of acclimatization of each individual,⁴⁵ and the adaptability of the local population, infrastructure and institutions to the prevailing climate.

Unfortunately, extreme heat can also interfere with some critical infrastructures, like health service delivery, which can further exacerbate the impact of the heat on human health. In 2021, for example, at least 11 people in Chennai, India, died from heat-related complications while waiting in line at hospital.⁴⁶ During the July 2021 heat wave in British Columbia, Canada, several older people reportedly passed away while waiting for an ambulance.⁴⁷ Extreme heat can reduce access to medicine by impacting the storage and shelf life of medications (which often have recommended storage temperatures between 20-25°C, or 68-77°F), vaccines and other necessary supplies, including disinfectants, which can degrade at higher temperatures.⁴⁸

Lastly, in addition to the more immediate health effects of extreme heat exposure, rising temperatures will also have longer-term health impacts, including by increasing the transmission of some vector-borne diseases.⁴⁹

The right to health is protected by Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which obligates states to take steps to promote, protect and fulfil “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”⁵⁰ As the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has made clear, the right to health “extends to the underlying determinants of health, such as food and nutrition, housing, access to safe and potable water and adequate sanitation, safe and healthy working conditions, and a healthy environment.”⁵¹

The right to health is also recognized in a range of other international human rights treaties. Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. According to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the state’s obligation to protect the health of children “also applies to the conditions that children need to lead a healthy life, such as a safe climate, safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, sustainable energy, adequate housing, access to nutritionally adequate and safe food, and healthy working conditions.”⁵²

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981 similarly includes the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Article 16(2) of the Charter adds that parties to the Charter “shall take the necessary measures to protect the health of their people and to ensure that they receive medical attention when they are sick.”⁵³

Inextricably linked to the right to health, in this context, is the right to a healthy environment. In July 2022, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution declaring access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment to be a universal human right.⁵⁴ On March 23, 2023, the UN Human Rights Council adopted by consensus a resolution reaffirming the right to a healthy environment and calling on states to take steps to “respect, protect and fulfill” that right.⁵⁵ The right to a healthy environment is also included in several regional human rights treaties, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the 1988 Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights, and in the Constitutions or domestic legislation of many individual countries.

Right to Life

Extreme heat and extreme heat events are already killing large numbers of people.⁵⁶ According to one estimate, an estimated 480,000+ deaths per year were associated with “non-optimal” high temperatures between 2000 and 2019.⁵⁷ If global mean temperature continues to rise to just under 2°C (3.6°F), annual heat-related deaths are projected to increase by 370 percent by mid-century, assuming no substantial progress on adaptation.⁵⁸

Given the absence of a standard definition for what constitutes a heat-related death, it is likely that analyses of heat-related mortality are undercounts.⁶⁶ This is in part because heat-stress can exacerbate underlying conditions, which may then be listed as the cause of death with no reference made to heat.

As an example, according to official data, excessive heat caused the death of approximately 300 people in Australia in the last decade and caused the hospitalization of 7,000 people. However, a recent study found that there were over 36,000 deaths associated with heat between 2006 and 2017.⁶⁷ Dr. Thomas Longden, the author of the study, noted that “this indicates that when doctors are filling out death certificates, they don’t focus on the external causes of death. Instead, they are mainly focused on the biological or internal causes of death.”⁶⁸ Another analysis looking at deaths of farmworkers in California suggests that farmworker deaths from heat and/or air pollution far exceed the numbers recorded by California’s Occupational Health and Safety Association.⁶⁹ As is the case in Australia, the biological or internal causes of death, such as heart attack, are listed on death certificate without consideration of the external factors that precipitate the internal causes, like heat.⁷⁰

Uncompensable heat — exposure to heat in a situation in which the body is unable to cool itself — causes the internal body temperature to rise. When the body’s internal temperature reaches 39.5°C (103°F) or higher, organs such as the brain, heart, gut, and kidneys can become damaged. A victim of heatstroke might experience abrupt changes in cognitive function and mental state, such as confusion, hallucination, and seizure. A person can fall unconscious and, in extreme cases, go into cardiac arrest. In acute instances, extreme heat can lead to sudden organ failure and death.⁷¹

All else held equal, exposure to six hours of uncompensable heat could result in a lethal rise in core temperatures for a healthy human being.⁷² This threshold could be even lower for heat-sensitive groups, such as children or older people.

Chronic heat exposure can also trigger or exacerbate underlying diseases such as kidney disorders, hypertension, and chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases – leading to more premature deaths.

According to the IPCC, heat-related mortality, also linked to cardiovascular disease and other underlying conditions, will rise significantly by 2030, particularly under high emission scenarios.⁷³ Asia, North Africa and the Middle East will be most seriously affected – but people in Europe and North America will also suffer.

The right to life is the most basic and a universal human right. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) specify that every person has the right to life. It is critical that governments, companies, and other actors take decisive steps to protect individuals from the very real and foreseeable risk that extreme heat and extreme heat events due to climate change will violate this most basic of rights.

IPCC graphic depicting projected annual additional deaths due to climate change, including deaths attributable to heat.⁷⁴

Right to a Safe and Healthy Work Environment

Integral to the right to health and the right to life is the right to a safe and healthy work environment. Yet extreme heat is putting the health and lives of workers at risk, in part due to workplace conditions and policies that increase heat exposure and limit adaptive behaviors.⁷⁵

Working in high temperatures puts a huge strain on the human cardiovascular system, with extreme heat stress leading to illness and fatalities. Working in excessive heat can also increase the risk of workplace accidents and injuries.⁷⁶ A recent study by the International Labor Organization found that working in excessive heat leads to nearly 19,000 deaths and 22.85 million occupational injuries every year.⁷⁷

Article 7(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Political Rights specifically recognizes “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work,” including, in particular, “safe and healthy working conditions.”⁷⁸ As the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated in interpreting the provision, the right to just and favourable conditions of work “applies to all workers in all settings, regardless of gender, as well as young and older workers, workers with disabilities, workers in the informal sector, migrant workers, workers from ethnic and other minorities, domestic workers, self-employed workers, agricultural workers, refugee workers and unpaid workers.”⁷⁹

In order to protect this right, “states parties should adopt a national policy for the prevention of accidents and work-related health injury by minimizing hazards in the working environment.”⁸⁰ Access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation facilities that also meet women’s specific hygiene needs, and materials and information to promote good hygiene are essential elements of a safe and healthy working environment.⁸¹ So, too, is the protection against the health and safety risks posed by excess heat.

Article 11(1)(f) of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women requires states to ensure that women have an equal right to protection of health and to safety in working conditions, including the safeguarding of the function of reproduction.⁸²

In June 2022, the International Labour Organization added a safe and healthy working environment to its Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.⁸³

Right to Education

Extreme heat can disrupt education in a variety of ways, including via school closures when the schools are too hot for children to safely attend. In April 2024, temperatures in parts of Bangladesh soared to 42°C (108°F) and caused a nationwide shutdown of all schools, putting learning on pause for more than 32 million students.⁸⁴ Unfortunately, students in Bangladesh are no strangers to heat-related school closures. In June 2023, one year prior, Bangladesh similarly closed thousands of primary schools during a prolonged heat wave in which temperatures in Dhaka reached 40°C (104°F).⁸⁵ As Umair, an 8-year-old student in Dhaka told Climate Rights International, “My school was closed off for four days from the heat wave in Dhaka this summer. Classes just stopped.”⁸⁶

Bangladesh is only one of the many places in which heat has caused school closures. In April 2023, several states in India were forced to close schools when temperatures exceeded 44°C (111°F) in some areas.⁸⁷ In September 2022, nearly 150 schools in four U.S. cities were closed due to heat.⁸⁸ On March 18, 2024, South Sudan announced the closure of all of its schools in preparation for a heat wave expected to last up to two weeks, during which temperatures were expected to reach 45°C (113°F).⁸⁹ In April 2024, the Philippines closed all public schools due to soaring temperatures.⁹⁰

Primary school in Bangladesh. Photo by SyedAminul, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Schools in some places can continue to teach through online learning during school closures, but that option is not available for many. As the shift to online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic made clear, schools in poorer areas lack the resources to do so. Children from marginalized communities are less likely to have internet access or access to an internet-connected device even if online teaching is available.⁹¹ Students from the poorest families are thus more likely to be denied education in a heat wave — widening already deep educational inequalities.

Heat can affect learning even when schools remain open. Climate-exacerbated temperature extremes can interfere with cognitive development⁹² and have been linked to both reduced test scores and overall rates of learning.⁹³ A study by the US Environmental Protection Agency found that temperature increases of 2°C (3.6°F) and 4°C (7.2°F) of global warming are associated with, on average, 4% and 7% reductions in academic achievement per child, respectively, relative to average learning gains experienced each school year.⁹⁴ Another study that evaluated data from 144 million students across 58 countries found a negative association between the number of hot school days and the rate of learning.⁹⁵

As a nine-year-old student from Karachi described it to Climate Rights International:

The impact of heat on education falls most heavily on students and communities that lack the resources to adapt.

Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), every person has the right to an education, and governments have a duty to ensure that this right is respected, protected, and fulfilled. Under the ICESCR, educational institutions must be available in sufficient quantity in the jurisdiction and accessible to everyone without discrimination. Accessibility includes both physical accessibility and economic accessibility.⁹⁷

According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the specifics each institution requires to function depends upon numerous factors, including the developmental context within which they operate, but “all institutions and programmes are likely to require buildings or other protection from the elements, sanitation facilities for both sexes, safe drinking water, trained teachers receiving domestically competitive salaries, teaching materials, and so on.”⁹⁸

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has stressed that states should build “safe, healthy and resilient infrastructure for effective learning.”⁹⁹ This includes “classrooms with adequate heating and cooling and access to sufficient, safe and acceptable drinking water and sanitation facilities.”¹⁰⁰

The importance of the right to education is reflected in that fact that it has been affirmed in a wide range of additional human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child,¹⁰¹ the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,¹⁰² the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities,¹⁰³ and the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.¹⁰⁴ The right to education is also protected under regional human rights treaties, including the European Convention on Human Rights,¹⁰⁵ the American Convention on Human Rights,¹⁰⁶ and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.¹⁰⁷

Right to Water

Climate change is already affecting water access for people around the world, causing more severe droughts and floods. Increasing global temperatures are one of the main contributors to this problem. Working Group I of the IPCC found with high confidence that warming over land drives an increase in atmospheric evaporative demand and in the severity of drought events.¹⁰⁸ Droughts put access to water at risk.

In the period 2012–21, on average, almost 47 percent of global land area was affected by at least one month of extreme drought each year, an increase of 29 percent from the period 1951–60.¹⁰⁹ The Middle East and north Africa, where 41 million people lack access to safe water and 66 million do not have basic sanitation services, were particularly affected, with some areas experiencing more than 10 extra months of extreme drought.¹¹⁰

The Global Drought Monitor Consortium found that the record heat experienced in 2023 “affected the water cycle in various ways,” including by exacerbating drought conditions.¹¹¹ Looking forward, the report said, “the greatest risk of developing or intensifying drought” over the next year is in much of Central and South America, southern Africa, and western Australia.

Water quality is also affected by climate change, as higher water temperatures and more frequent floods and droughts are projected to exacerbate many forms of water pollution – from sediments to pathogens and pesticides.¹¹²

The human right to water, under international law, entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, physically accessible, and affordable water for personal and domestic use.¹¹³ Personal and domestic uses “ordinarily include drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation, personal and household hygiene.”¹¹⁴ The costs and charges associated with securing water must not compromise or threaten the realization of other human rights.¹¹⁵

While the adequacy of water supply varies according to conditions, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation has stated that to “ensure the full realization of the right, States should aim for at least 50 to 100 liters per person per day.”¹¹⁶

A 2020 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) defined “optimal access” to water—which carries “low” levels of health concern—as having more than 100 liters per person per day, supplied to the home through multiple taps and continuously available. It defined “intermediate access”—with a “medium” level of health concern—as an average quantity of about 50 liters per person per day, supplied through one tap on the plot of land, or within 100 meters or 5 minutes total of collection time. It defined “basic access”—carrying “high” levels of health concern—as an average quantity unlikely to exceed 20 liters per person per day, with 100-1000 meters in distance or 5 to 30 minutes in collection time.¹¹⁷

In addition to water for personal and domestic use, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has said that States should ensure that “there is adequate access to water for subsistence farming and for securing the livelihoods of indigenous peoples.”¹¹⁸

Right to Food

Climate change is already a leading cause of hunger, second only to conflict, according to the World Food Program.¹¹⁹ Foreseeable climate change driven phenomena, including changes in precipitation patterns, desertification or salinization of land, droughts and floods, loss of arable land due to rising sea levels, and extreme weather events, will combine to greatly exacerbate existing threats to food security, particularly in regions of Asia, Africa, South America, and island states. In the absence of timely mitigation and adaptation measures, these regions may face starvation and/or severe hunger with tragic regularity.

Extreme heat damages agricultural yields and decreases food supply and shelf life, contributing to both long- and short-term food insecurity.¹²⁰ Extreme heat can also lead to dehydration and heat stress in the livestock upon which many depend. For example, the heat wave that hit Niger in 2023, with temperatures reaching 47°C (116.6°F), reportedly led to increased mortality among livestock.¹²¹

New data indicates that a higher frequency of heat waves and droughts was associated with 127 million more people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021 than annually between 1981 and 2010, putting millions of people at risk of malnutrition and potentially irreversible health effects.¹²²

The increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, including heat waves, can damage crops and agricultural lands, affect livestock, disrupt supply chains, and affect food availability and stability of supplies. Increasing water temperatures and ocean acidification threaten fish stocks, thereby undermining marine food supplies.

If global mean temperature continues to rise to just under 2°C (3.6°F), heat waves alone could lead to 524.9 million additional people experiencing moderate-to-severe food insecurity by 2041–60 compared with the 1995–2014 baseline.¹²³

Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), everyone has the right to adequate food. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that the core content of the right to adequate food implies, “The availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances, and acceptable within a given culture; … The accessibility of such food in ways that are sustainable and that do not interfere with the enjoyment of other human rights.”¹²⁴

Every state is obliged to ensure for everyone under its jurisdiction access to the minimum essential food which is sufficient, nutritionally adequate and safe, to ensure their freedom from hunger.¹²⁵

Rights of Future Generations

A fast-developing area of international law and norms concerns the rights of future generations. Decisions being taken by those currently living can affect the lives and rights of those born years, decades, or many centuries in the future. Climate change has created greater urgency about the need to recognize the intergenerational dimensions of present conduct.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has stressed that, while the rights of children who are present on Earth require immediate urgent attention, the children constantly arriving are also entitled to the realization of their human rights to the maximum extent.¹²⁶ Beyond their immediate obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, States bear the responsibility for foreseeable environment-related threats arising as a result of their acts or omissions now, the full implications of which may not manifest for years or even decades.¹²⁷

Failure to act on climate change poses existential risks to future generations. By 2100, temperatures could rise to the point that just going outside for a few hours in some parts of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia will exceed the “upper limit for survivability, even with idealized conditions of perfect health, total inactivity, full shade, absence of clothing, and unlimited drinking water,” according to a 2020 study in Science Advances.¹²⁸

The Maastricht Principles on the Human Rights of Future Generations, adopted in 2023 and endorsed by nearly sixty leading legal and human rights experts from around the world, seek to clarify the state of international human rights law as it applies to future generations.¹²⁹ According to those principles, states have obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights of future generations, who have the right to equal enjoyment of all human rights. States and other duty bearers must refrain from any conduct which can reasonably be expected to result in, or perpetuate, any form of discrimination against future generations.¹³⁰

Where there are reasonable grounds for concern that the impacts of State or non-State conduct, whether singly or in aggregate, may result in violations of the human rights of future generations, the Maastricht Principles take the position that States have an obligation to prevent the harm, and must take all reasonable steps to avoid or minimize such harm. Doing so demands a strong approach to precaution, particularly when conduct threatens irreparable harm to the Earth’s ability to sustain human life or to the common biological and cultural heritage of humankind.¹³¹

Failure of states to rein in emissions will leave future generations with a world that is largely unlivable, in clear violation of their rights to life and each of the rights discussed above, among many others.

II. Impact of Extreme Heat on Specific Populations

While extreme heat and extreme heat events pose risks to everyone, some groups are more at risk than others. Women, children, people living in poverty, older people, pregnant people, and people with disabilities may suffer disproportionately from the impacts of extreme heat. Those in confined spaces without adequate cooling, including prisons and factories, and those who work outdoors, are also at increased risk.

Children

Children are more vulnerable to heat-related illness and death than adults.¹³² This is because they are less able to regulate their body temperature and are dependent on others to regulate the temperature of their environment.¹³³ Children are particularly vulnerable to dehydration and heat stress as a result of their body surface to volume ratio.¹³⁴ They are more likely to develop respiratory disease, kidney disease, and fever during hot weather.¹³⁵

A doctor in Bangladesh told Climate Rights International that during a June 2023 heat wave she treated numerous children under the age of five suffering from dehydration, with nausea, decreased urination, dizziness, and discomfort.¹³⁶

Children can also experience respiratory impacts as a result of rising temperatures. Extreme heat can exacerbate the health impacts of poor air quality, and because children have less developed respiratory systems and relatively high rates of respiration, they are more vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution than adults.¹³⁷

Childhood exposure to heat waves is increasing. Children younger than one year of age experienced 4.4 more heat wave days per child per year between 2012 and 2021 than between 1986 and 2005.¹³⁸ UNICEF estimates that 559 million children around the world are already being exposed to high heat wave frequency, meaning they live in areas that experience an average of 4.5 or more heatwaves annually, and that by 2050 over 2 billion children (“virtually every child on Earth”) will face more frequent heat waves.¹³⁹

As the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated in its General Comment 26:

States should take positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives that may be caused by acts and omissions, as well as the activities of business actors, and enjoy their right to life with dignity. Such measures include the adoption and effective implementation of environmental standards, for example, those related to air and water quality, food safety, lead exposure and greenhouse gas emissions, and all other adequate and necessary environmental measures that are protective of children’s right to life.

Older People

Heat-vulnerability is influenced by advanced age more than any other non-modifiable risk factor.¹⁴⁰

Aprdous Hossain, a 74-year-old widow living in Dhaka, described the impact of the intense heat in the summer of 2023 to Climate Rights International:

This summer I feel very tired. My energy is draining with my sweat. When I was in the kitchen you see I could not come out and sit here to take my lunch. I was so exhausted. I eat only small portions of rice because I am too hot. I am always feeling dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. I am not sleeping, but I feel there is a dizziness because it is so hot.¹⁴¹

Older people are overrepresented in heat wave-related excess mortality statistics across the globe.¹⁴² More than half of the heat-related deaths in Europe during the summer of 2022 were people aged 80 and older.¹⁴³ In a study of Mexico City, Mexico, São Paulo, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile, researchers found that susceptibility to heat-related mortality increased with age in all cities.¹⁴⁴ In Japan, approximately 80% of heatstroke deaths over recent years have been among people over 65.¹⁴⁵

The vulnerability of older people is in part because of their biological vulnerability to heat stress. Sweating capacity and skin blood flow reduce with age, interfering with the body’s ability to dissipate heat.¹⁴⁶ Older people also have higher rates of pre-existing chronic illnesses, which can compound the risks of heat. Age-related heat vulnerability can be compounded by poverty, social isolation, and low-quality housing.¹⁴⁷

Heat-related mortality for people older than 65 years increased by approximately 68 percent between 2000–04 and 2017–21.¹⁴⁸ Annual heat-related mortality of people older than 65 years is projected to increase by 370 percent above 1995–2014 levels by 2041–60 under a scenario compatible with limiting global temperature rise to 2°C (3.6°F), and by 433 percent under a scenario in which no further climate mitigation or adaptation occurs.¹⁴⁹

Outdoor Workers

Globally, in 2022, an estimated 1.6 billion paid workers – 26.4 percent of the working-age population – worked outdoors.¹⁵⁰ People who work outdoors, whether agricultural workers, construction workers, street vendors or rickshaw drivers, are more likely to become dehydrated or to suffer from heat-related illness than the general population. The Global Heat Health Information Network notes that heat stress can affect the safety and health of workers engaged in physical effort at considerably lower temperatures than it would affect inactive people.¹⁵¹

Heat vulnerability of outdoor workers can increase depending on the number of hours spent outdoors, the level of exertion required on the job, and the protective equipment worn.¹⁵² Construction workers and agricultural workers are particularly at risk of heat stress given the physically demanding nature of the work, the long exposures to thermal radiation, and personal protective equipment that reduces the efficiency of sweating and heat loss through evaporation. Moreover, workers that are compensated based on productivity measures, such as via piece-rate pay, may be disincentivized to take adequate breaks.¹⁵³

Photo of farmworkers in California. Photo via Unsplash.

In the U.S., farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die of heat-stress than the average worker.¹⁵⁴ In Qatar, hundreds of workers – many young men between 25 and 35 years old – die each year while doing construction or other outdoor work. One study found that many of these deaths were likely due to heat stress.¹⁵⁵

Workers in developing countries are particularly susceptible to heat risk, but the impacts in developing countries have been far less studied and there is thus limited data about those impacts.¹⁵⁶

Broadly, undocumented workers, many of whom work in construction, farming or other outdoor occupations, are more likely to experience work-place abuses and are sometimes less likely to report abuses for fear of retaliation. Undocumented workers also have reduced access to medical care.¹⁵⁷ These factors can work in combination to significantly increase heat-related mortality in undocumented populations. In the U.S., non-citizen immigrants have three times the risk of heat-related death compared to US citizens.¹⁵⁸

Poverty and job insecurity also put outdoor workers at higher risk, as many feel they have no choice but to work in the heat. As a 48-year-old rickshaw driver in Karachi, Pakistan, told Climate Rights International:

Even when it’s hot and I feel tired enough that I want to miss work, I cannot miss work because I depend on my daily income.¹⁵⁹

Another man who works as a security guard in Karachi and washes cars on the side told us:

Sometimes I feel like my whole body is shaking and also feel dizzy when I perform physical labour like washing cars. I also get tired easily, but I have to work because if I don’t, I won’t earn a living.¹⁶⁰

For those working outside, hydration, rest breaks, and shade from the sun are critical. Trials with sugarcane workers in Nicaragua have shown that when laborers are allowed to take frequent water breaks in the shade, incidents of kidney damage go down dramatically and productivity goes up.¹⁶¹ Employers can also provide weather-appropriate personal protective equipment, while also encouraging workers to remove the equipment when resting (ideally in shaded areas) to cool off.¹⁶²

Even when rest breaks or water breaks are technically allowed, it is critical that workers not be penalized for actually taking them. As one construction worker in Karachi, Pakistan explained to Climate Rights International:

We can take shade breaks if it is extremely hot, but we rarely take those breaks because we have daily targets to meet during construction work. So, we mostly have to continue working even when it is hot as we will not meet our targets otherwise and that can lead to us losing our jobs.¹⁶³

Despite the risks, most workers have little legal protection against being forced to work in extreme heat. In the U.S., for instance, there are no federal rules on acceptable heat exposure.¹⁶⁴ While the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is currently drafting guidelines for indoor and outdoor work in heat, it is likely to be years before they are completed and in force.¹⁶⁵ Only three U.S. states require heat breaks for outdoor workers (California, Oregon and Washington).¹⁶⁶ Employers in Washington and Oregon must provide cool-down periods of 10 minutes every two hours when the temperature reaches 32°C (90°F). In Washington, the mandated rest break extends to 15 minutes every hour at 37.8°C (100°F).¹⁶⁷ California, on the other hand, does not require any mandatory rest breaks until the temperature reaches 35°C (95°F).¹⁶⁸ Critics argue that, even when states do have heat standards for outdoor work, the threshold at which some of these protections kick in are insufficiently protective, and there is inadequate enforcement.

Shockingly, in April 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill, approved by the Florida state Senate in March, that would ban cities and counties from adopting requirements for mandatory water breaks and other workplace protections against extreme heat.¹⁶⁹ During the 2023 heat wave in Texas, the state passed a law that rescinded protections that required water breaks for outdoor workers and removed the power of local governments to protect workers from heat, finding such protections to be “too burdensome” on businesses.¹⁷⁰ While a court held the restriction of local government power to be unconstitutional in August 2023, the state is appealing that ruling.¹⁷¹

In the European Union, there is currently no binding regional legislation protecting workers from extreme temperatures and only a few of the EU member states have developed specific plans for protecting the working population from heat events, including maximum temperature thresholds.¹⁷²

A number of countries in the Middle East have put in place some regulations to protect construction workers, most of whom are migrant workers from outside the region, from extreme heat, but many of those protections are insufficient or not adequately enforced.¹⁷³ For example, six countries in the Gulf region have put in place bans on working during the middle of the day in the hottest months.¹⁷⁴ The bans, which are based on calendar dates rather than actual daytime temperatures, have been criticized as inadequate to protect workers.¹⁷⁵ In May, 2021, Qatar issued a new Ministerial Regulation that prohibits any outdoor work when the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) rises beyond 32.1°C (89.8°F).¹⁷⁶ While an improvement over limited mid-day work bans, the directive has been criticized as setting the WBGT too high to effectively protect workers, and for failing to mandate rest and water breaks when work is ongoing.¹⁷⁷ In many countries, outdoor workers have no legal protection against the risks posed by work in extreme heat.

In 2023, workers for United Parcel Service (UPS) in the U.S. threatened to strike unless the company took action to protect them from heat. During heat waves the temperature in some UPS delivery vehicles reportedly measured at more than 54.4°C (130°F), and at least 143 UPS employees were hospitalized for heat illness between 2015 and 2022.¹⁷⁸ The strike was averted when the company agreed to measures to, among other things, gradually introduce air conditioning, heat shields and fans to delivery vehicles.¹⁷⁹

While there may be disagreements over whether drivers, including bus drivers, and agricultural workers operating in polytunnels or other covered spaces are “outdoor” workers, the buildup of heat in such spaces is a clear risk to health. Heat standards developed for outdoor workers should be interpreted in the way that is most protective of worker health.

Migrant workers lay down supporting rods for a floor at a construction site in Doha. Photo by the International Labour Organization via Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED.

Indoor Workers

Indoor workers in warehouses, factories, restaurants, and other poorly ventilated or inadequately cooled spaces also face disproportionate heat-related health risks on the job.

In Bangladesh, researchers have recorded temperatures as high as 38°C (100.4°F) in garment factories.¹⁸⁰ Garment workers in Dhaka have reported headaches, dizziness, blood pressure destabilization, and minor injuries as a result of heat stress.¹⁸¹ In the U.S., because workers of color are overrepresented across industries operating in poorly ventilated or inadequately cooled spaces, they suffer from heat-related illness and fatalities more frequently than white workers.¹⁸²

Garment factory in Indonesia. Photo via Unsplash.

Rising ambient temperatures fueled by climate change can also compound the effects of workplace exposure to other heat sources, including ovens. An investigation of brick kiln workers in Cambodia, for example, recorded core body temperatures over 38°C (100.4°F) in all 30 workers studied.¹⁸³ Kitchen and bakery workers in Egypt, too, have reported symptoms of heat stress on the job.¹⁸⁴

Despite the large body of anecdotal evidence, epidemiolocal data on the health impacts of indoor heat is limited.¹⁸⁵ As a result, knowledge gaps regarding indoor heat thresholds, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity persist.¹⁸⁶ Though some places, like the U.S. state of California,¹⁸⁷ Germany,¹⁸⁸ Spain,¹⁸⁹ Vietnam,¹⁹⁰ and Thailand,¹⁹¹ have set indoor temperature thresholds for healthy working conditions, this is not the norm,¹⁹² and the thresholds that have been set are sometimes troublingly high.¹⁹³ For example, in Thailand, the threshold for “medium work” that involves lifting, towing, pulling or removing anything with medium force, is a WBGT value of 32°C (89.6°F).¹⁹⁴

Even where indoor occupational temperature standards do exist, they are not always enforced. In Vietnam, for example, where there exist both temperature and humidity thresholds for indoor labor based upon the intensity of work (light, medium, heavy), researchers have documented instances of non-compliance.¹⁹⁵ A report by Cornell University found that temperature certifiers sometimes report early-morning temperatures, as they tend to be lower than afternoon measures.¹⁹⁶ Informants interviewed by researchers for that report noted that they had never seen a certifier report a temperature about the 32°C (89.6°F) threshold for ‘medium’ level work.¹⁹⁷ In the U.S., there are reports of employers, such as Amazon, disputing high indoor temperature readings.¹⁹⁸

Baker in Egypt. Photo by Arun Katiyar via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED.

People Living in Poverty

People living in poverty – including unhoused people – have fewer resources to adapt to extreme heat. This often results in higher levels of exposure.

In the last decade, for example, heat exposure was more than 40% higher in countries in the lowest-quartile by income compared to the highest-quartile.¹⁹⁹ The income-exposure correlation also holds true at the local level: higher temperatures are consistently found in densely populated and poorer neighborhoods.²⁰⁰ One study in Thailand found that low-income Bangkok residents were more likely to experience heat stress than those with high incomes.²⁰¹ In India, an investigation by The Washington Post found that poorer neighborhoods in the city of Kolkata recorded temperatures that were 5.6°C (10°F) hotter than nearby affluent communities.²⁰² In the United States, lower income neighborhoods experience significantly more heat than higher income neighborhoods.²⁰³ And in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, an area of lower income residents, many of whom lack or cannot afford to run air conditioners, it can reportedly be 10°C (18°F) hotter than the wealthier seaside areas of the city.²⁰⁴

Despite these comparatively high levels of exposure to heat, people living in poverty are least able to afford cooling, to take time off from work during heat waves, or to afford treatment when suffering from the impact of extreme heat. As one man in Dhaka told Climate Rights International, when he got sick from the heat, his doctor recommended that he “rest and have foods that have a cooling effect, but I can’t afford food like that because they are expensive.”²⁰⁵

Fear of crime, which leaves some unwilling to leave windows open for ventilation, and social isolation can exacerbate the impact of heat for those living in poverty.

Persons with Disabilities

Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which, “in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.”²⁰⁶ There are many types of disabilities, including those that affect vision, hearing, speech, cognition, and mobility.

Persons with disabilities are among the most vulnerable in emergencies involving environmental hazards, with disproportionately high rates of mortality, as well as being among those least able to access emergency support.²⁰⁷

One reason that persons with disabilities may be more vulnerable than the general population to impacts of climate change such as extreme heat is because decisionmakers often have not fully considered persons with disabilities in their planning, or because emergency warnings and other important messages have not been designed with accessibility in mind, making it difficult for those with disabilities affecting vision or hearing to receive those messages.²⁰⁸

Some people with disabilities are also at increased risk of heat-related injury and illness. For example, having a pre-existing psychosocial disability can triple the risk of death during heat waves.²⁰⁹ Some conditions themselves can interfere with thermoregulation, such as multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.²¹⁰ In addition, some medications, such as certain antidepressant and psychiatric medications, as well as some blood pressure and heart medications, can interfere with thermoregulation processes in the body.

People with limited mobility are also at increased risk during heat waves, in part due to reduced access to resources and reduced ability to access community cooling centers when available.

Pregnant People

Pregnant people may be uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of extreme heat.²¹¹ Heat exposure during pregnancy, for example, has been linked to several types of severe maternal morbidity, including sepsis and abnormal blood clotting.²¹² One study in the U.S. found that for every 1°C (1.8°F) rise in temperature, the risk of experiencing cardiovascular events during childbirth increased by 11%.²¹³

Heat exposure during pregnancy can also negatively affect maternal mental well-being. Pregnant people often report experiencing sleep disruptions during hot weather, which can increase their already-elevated risk for depression.²¹⁴ One woman in Bangladesh in her third trimester told Climate Rights International that she can’t sleep at night due to the heat – a problem made worse by night-time power cuts in her area that made her fan inoperable.²¹⁵ Pregnant and postpartum women have also reported increased levels of irritability and anxiety during hot weather.²¹⁶ Another woman told CRI, “pregnancy is hard in general, but the heat makes it harder as I get tired and exhausted more easily in the heat and I still have to continue to work to feed my family.”²¹⁷

Exposure to high temperatures during pregnancy is also associated with a number of adverse birth outcomes, including stillbirth, low birth weight, and preterm birth,²¹⁸ which can negatively impact developmental trajectories and lead to lifelong health complications.²¹⁹ One study that analyzed birth outcomes in 14 low- and middle-income countries found an increased risk of both preterm and stillbirth among those exposed to high temperatures during pregnancy. Current research suggests that these associations may be strongest in the final week or month before birth, suggesting an acute effect of heat exposure.²²⁰

The association between heat exposure and adverse pregnancy outcomes may be more pronounced among pregnant women with lower socioeconomic status²²¹ or educational attainment.²²² And in places like the U.S., these associations may weigh more heavily on women of color.²²³ One study out of California, for example, found that every 5.6°C (10°F) temperature increase increased population preterm deliveries by 8.6 percent, while the same temperature rise increased preterm births for Black women by 15 percent.²²⁴

Women

Some studies in Europe have found that women are more at risk – in both relative and absolute terms – of dying during heat waves than men, though there are exceptions.²²⁵ A recent study of the 2022 heat wave in Europe found that there were 56% more heat-related deaths among women than men.²²⁶

Though women’s vulnerability to extreme heat may be explained, in part, by physiological factors like reduced sweat output²²⁷ or some hormonal differences,²²⁸ gender disparities in heat injury and illness are likely better explained by related economic and social factors.

On average, women tend to have fewer financial resources to cope with extreme heat than men. Women are paid less²²⁹ than men on average and are more likely to live in poverty.²³⁰ One report funded by the International Development Research Center found that hotter temperatures and increased rainfall in South Asia have forced home-based female workers to reduce their working hours, resulting in income loss.²³¹ This is an unfortunate pattern, as the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center estimates US$120 billion in annual heat-related losses to women’s paid labor productivity across India, Nigeria, and the United States.²³²

In many countries, women bear the burden of unpaid labor, including fetching water, cooking, and caring for children. Extreme heat events can make each of these things more difficult. Nasreen, a domestic worker in Karachi, described to Climate Rights International the impact of heat on her daily life:

Fetching water becomes harder because I am exhausted from working at the end of the day and carrying water all the way in the heat is difficult. Cooking becomes more difficult because of the heat from the stove. The children also complain more about the heat and then I have to bathe them more frequently.²³³

Sardar Begum, a 67-year-old woman in Karachi, agreed:

Women suffer more when temperatures rises. There is shortage of water to perform daily tasks like bathing, washing, etc., and that impacts women the most. Our children also get irritated and exhausted due to the heat, so it is more difficult to deal with them. We also have to wear more covered clothing and that makes us feel hotter.²³⁴

Where women lack access to clean toilets, an unwillingness to drink water to avoid having to relieve themselves outdoors or in unhygienic, shared latrines increases the risk of dehydration.²³⁵ Similarly, for women working in overheated factories, lack of access to or penalties for taking toilet breaks can lead women to drink less water and increase the risk of dehydration.²³⁶

Studies have also shown an increase in gender-based violence during periods of extreme heat. A study by the ILO, for example, found that heat stress and related decreases in productivity can lead to an increased risk of violence for (mostly) female workers in the garment industry in Bangladesh.²³⁷ Another study documented an increase in intimate partner violence against women during and after periods of extreme heat.²³⁸

Women’s social roles, including expectations around clothing, also play a part in their vulnerability to heat. Moina, a data collector in Bangladesh whose job requires her to spend much of her time outdoors, explained the differential impact on women this way to Climate Rights International:

[T]he women have more pressure from the heat and more stress, especially for me because I work in the field and men can wear different clothing and go around and feel the wind outside. And they’re allowed to dress like that, but girls wear covered clothing and indoors they wear many layers and a headscarf. And for me, I am running around to different households and then I come home and cook and take care of the kids and these work circumstances make heat harder.²³⁹

People Living in Buildings not Designed for Extreme Heat

When buildings such as homes, care homes, and prisons are not adapted for extreme temperatures, those spending time in them are at increased risk of experiencing heat-related harms.

As noted by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, the increased frequency and severity of heat waves is a “silent killer” that leads to the death of thousands in their homes when homes lack adequate cooling.²⁴⁰ Low-income renters, older persons and persons with disabilities are the most vulnerable, and the most likely to be living in low-quality housing stock, without access to cooling. People living in informal settlements with homes made from corrugated iron may also be particularly at risk.

A 2019 study by the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Committee found that 20 percent of U.K. homes (4.5 million) overheated even in cool summers, due largely to the materials used for construction, lack of double glazing on windows, and inadequate insulation.²⁴¹ Those living in government-subsidized housing and in urban areas were found to be most at risk.

Similarly, a recent study of housing in cold regions of China found an increasing risk of interior overheating during the warmer months and recommended that local design standards should take into account the risk of overheating in the summer months and adjust thermal insulation accordingly.²⁴²

Retrofitting of the existing housing stock to adapt to the changing climate is critical not only to protect those living there but also to reduce emissions.²⁴³ Studies show that retrofitting housing in the U.K. would cut annual household energy bills by more than GBP400 while reducing carbon emissions.²⁴⁴ Despite the urgent need, in September 2023 the U.K. government eliminated regulations requiring landlords to retrofit rental properties to improve energy efficiency.²⁴⁵

Similarly, efforts by the U.S. government to require a shift from gas-condensing boilers to heat pumps are facing resistance. On February 1, 2024, Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced a disapproval resolution in Congress opposing the rule. Nearly 30 members of Congress joined the resolution.²⁴⁶

Heat pump. Photo via Wikimedia, public domain.

The risk for adverse effects of heat stress is highest for those who cannot access cooled spaces when indoor temperatures become dangerously high, whether because they are physically unable to leave their homes or care homes due to age or disability, or detained in the prison system.

Care homes, which tend to house older individuals and those with existing medical issues, present serious risks to their residents if not designed or adapted for heat waves. During the 2003 heat wave in England and Wales excess deaths amongst the over-75’s were much greater in nursing homes compared with those living at home: 42% compared to 33% respectively.²⁴⁷ Similarly, a study of excess mortality in care homes in one state in Germany during the 2003 heat wave found a sharp increase in deaths during the two week heat wave.²⁴⁸ Those operating care homes have an obligation to keep their residents safe, and governments have an obligation to enact legislation and policies to ensure that they do so.

Governments have a particular responsibility for those they are holding in prison or detention. One study looking at deaths in prison in the state of Texas found that, between 2001 and 2019, an average of 14 people per year died from heat-related causes in prisons without air conditioning, while none died of heat-related causes during that period in prisons with air conditioning.²⁴⁹ A 2021 investigation by the US Department of Justice found that temperatures in Mississippi’s state penitentiary reached as high as 50°C (124°F).²⁵⁰ Yet the U.S has no national standard for managing extreme temperatures in prisons or jails.²⁵¹

The U.S. is not alone in failing to protect prisoners from the impacts of heat. During a heat wave in 2019, temperatures in more than 187 French prisons reached 45°C (113°F), despite the existence of a heatwave plan for prisons.²⁵² Meanwhile, prisons Asia and Africa are often overcrowded and overheated.²⁵³

Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous groups, numbering about 476 million people worldwide, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat given their close economic and cultural ties to the land and nature.²⁵⁴ Extreme heat can lead to water and food scarcity and increase the risk of wildfires, all of which can have a serious impact on Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous groups often inhabit remote areas far from government aid, lack resilient infrastructure, and have long histories of suffering oppression, official neglect, and poverty.

III. The Responsibilities of Governments to Take Action to Protect Against Foreseeable Human Rights Harms Resulting from Extreme Heat

The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has recognized that climate change constitutes a “massive threat” to the enjoyment of rights, and has repeatedly noted that “failure to prevent foreseeable human rights harm caused by climate change, or a failure to mobilize the maximum available resources in an effort to do so, could constitute a breach of … [a state’s] obligations.”²⁵⁵ According to United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, governments have a “a human rights obligation to prevent the foreseeable adverse effects of climate change and ensure that those affected … have access to effective remedies and means of adaptation.”²⁵⁶

The obligation to prevent foreseeable adverse human rights impacts also applies to actual and potential human rights harms that may be caused by businesses within their territory, jurisdiction or control.²⁵⁷ States must set clear expectations for businesses, by enacting strong climate, environmental and human rights laws, regulations, standards and policies. Then States must supervise and monitor businesses that may foreseeably cause significant environmental harm.²⁵⁸

In September 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee found that Australia’s failure to adequately protect indigenous Torres Islanders against adverse impacts of climate change violated their rights under the ICCPR.²⁵⁹ In March 2024, the European Court of Human Rights held that parties to the ECHR have a positive obligation to protect individuals from serious adverse effects on their life, health, well-being, and quality of life arising from the harmful effects and risks caused by climate change.²⁶⁰ The binding legal ruling applies to the 46 countries in the Council of Europe.

The obligation to prevent foreseeable harm is particularly strong with respect to those populations that are considered more vulnerable. For example, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which interprets the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, stated in General Comment 26 that states should:

[T]ake positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives that may be caused by acts and omissions, as well as the activities of business actors, and enjoy their right to life with dignity.²⁶¹

The Committee went on to make clear that states “have a due diligence obligation to take appropriate preventive measures to protect children against reasonably foreseeable environmental harm and violations of their rights, paying due regard to the precautionary principle. This includes assessing the environmental impacts of policies and projects, identifying and preventing foreseeable harm, mitigating such harm if it is not preventable and providing for timely and effective remedies to redress both foreseeable and actual harm.”²⁶²

The U.N. Committee tasked with interpreting the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women has noted that disasters, including those related to climate change, disproportionately affect women.²⁶³ It has called on parties to that convention “separately and in cooperation with others, to take effective steps to equitably manage shared natural resources, in particular water, and limit carbon emissions, fossil fuel use, deforestation, near-surface permafrost degradation, soil degradation and transboundary pollution, including the dumping of toxic waste, and all other environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks that contribute to climate change and disasters, which tend to disproportionately negatively affect women and girls.”²⁶⁴

Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, states are specifically obligated to take measures to ensure the safety of people with disabilities in the event of a natural disaster. States should adopt or reform national emergency response plans and protocols in order to make them inclusive of, and accessible to, persons with disabilities, including through the inclusion of persons with disabilities in evacuation plans. States also have a duty to ensure that information related to emergencies such as extreme heat events is made available in formats accessible to persons with different types of impairments, including sign language and Easy to Read formats, and in the languages spoken in their territory.²⁶⁵

Regional human rights treaties are also increasingly being interpreted to require governments to act to prevent human rights harms from climate change. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory decision in November 2017 finding that the right to a healthy environment contained in the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR)¹⁰⁸ is an enforceable right under that Convention, and that states have obligations to prevent significant environmental damage that impacts human rights.²⁶⁶

Common but Differentiated Legal and Policy Responses

The specific actions, plans, policies, and laws best suited to fulfil these obligations will differ markedly from country to country. Extreme heat is not a situation where one set of policy recommendations will be appropriate, or efficacious, for all countries, or even all areas within a country. The concrete actions outlined below should be read in that context. But given the seriousness of the threat and the urgency of developing a cogent response, all governments – at all levels – and many private actors, need to be considering, and then implementing, appropriate adaptation plans.

There are a range of concrete steps that governments can and should take to protect against the foreseeable harms of extreme heat. While the most important strategy to address the human rights impact of heat is to reduce global emissions and engage in other mitigation strategies, even strong mitigation cannot eliminate the impact of the warming that has already taken place — and will continue to take place as a result of emissions already in the atmosphere. It is critical, therefore, that governments pursue adaptation strategies to ameliorate the impact of heat on the population and ensure that third parties such as businesses do the same.

The appropriate adaptations will vary between locations. For example, strategies that mitigate the urban heat island effect will have little impact in a rural setting, and adaptations that require access to reliable power won’t work in areas where power is either unavailable or unaffordable. There are, however, some general strategies applicable across locations.

IV. Human Rights Responsibilities of Companies

Businesses also have a responsibility to respect human rights. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, unanimously endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011, are the internationally-accepted framework for addressing the risk of human rights impacts by businesses.²⁶⁷ The Guiding Principles make clear that businesses have the responsibility to “[a]void causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities and address such impacts when they occur.”²⁶⁸ A business enterprise’s “activities” are understood to include both actions and omissions.²⁶⁹

Addressing adverse human rights impacts “requires taking adequate measures for their prevention, mitigation and, where appropriate, remediation.” The obligation to respect human rights refers, at a minimum, to those enshrined in the core international human rights treaties and the ILO’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.²⁷⁰

Businesses must also “seek to prevent or mitigate” impacts that are “directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships,” including entities in their value chain, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.²⁷¹

To fulfill these responsibilities, companies should have in place due diligence processes that assess actual and potential impacts, act upon the findings, track responses and communicate how the impacts are addressed.²⁷²

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises similarly provide that businesses should carry out risk-based due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate actual and potential adverse impacts on human rights.²⁷³ As in the UN Guiding Principles, even if the enterprise does not cause or contribute to the impact, it still has a responsibility to prevent and mitigate impacts directly linked to a “business relationship,” including “entities in the supply chain which supply products or services that contribute to the enterprise’s own operations, products or services.”²⁷⁴

European Union Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive

The European Union and several European countries have also adopted legally binding legislation requiring businesses to act with regard to human rights violations within their own operations and in their supply chain.

On May 24, 2024, the Council of the European Union gave final approval to adopt the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (the “Directive”).²⁷⁵ The Directive, once transposed into law in the EU member states and phased in, will require all companies with significant sales in the EU – not only companies organized or headquartered in the EU – to undertake human rights and environmental due diligence within their global operations and supply chain, to eliminate or mitigate and remediate any adverse impacts that are identified, and to adopt and implement a transition plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement’s and EU objectives.²⁷⁶ All companies subject to the Directive will be required to, among other things, identify any actual or potential adverse human rights impacts and adverse environmental impacts, either in their own global operations or in those of their business partners, and prevent or, where prevention is not possible, adequately mitigate all such adverse impacts. The annex to the Directive specifically includes, among the human rights that must be the focus of corporate action, the right to enjoy just and favorable conditions of work, including safe and healthy working conditions, interpreted in line with articles 7 and 11 of the ICESCR.

French Due Diligence Law

In 2017, France passed a new corporate due diligence law, called the duty of vigilance law, imposing a legally binding obligation on large parent companies to identify, prevent, mitigate and redress human rights and environmental impacts resulting from their own activities as well as from the operations of companies under their control, subcontractors and suppliers with whom they have an established business relationship.²⁷⁷ he law requires the parent company to publish and implement a detailed due diligence plan or account for the failure to do so. The plan must include a mapping that identifies, analyzes and ranks risks; procedures to regularly assess, in accordance with the risk mapping, the situation of subsidiaries, subcontractors or suppliers with whom the company maintains an established commercial relationship; appropriate actions to mitigate risks or prevent serious violations; an alert mechanism that collects potential or actual risks; and a monitoring scheme to follow up on the measures implemented and assess their efficiency.

The French law applies to any company whose head office is in France and that employs at least 5,000 employees, and companies headquartered in France or abroad with at least 10,000 employees within the company and its direct and indirect subsidiaries.

German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act

The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG or Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz) was approved by the German parliament on June 11, 2021, and came into effect on January 1, 2023. The Act requires companies to conduct due diligence to identify forced labor, child labor, discrimination, violations of freedom of association, unsafe working conditions and environmental degradation in their supply chains, and to mitigate such violations if found.

The depth of due diligence required is determined by the nature and scope of the company’s business; the company’s ability to influence the direct cause of a human rights-related or environmental-related risk or the violation of a human rights-related or environmental-related duty; the expected severity of a violation, the ability to mitigate the violation, and the likelihood of the violation of a human rights-related or environmental obligation; and the nature of the company’s contribution to human rights or environmental risks or the violation of human rights or environmental obligation.

Companies must publish an annual report describing implemented due diligence measures, the identification of risks, and the preventive and remedial measures adopted to mitigate such risks.

As of January 1, 2024, the directive applies to every company with at least a thousand employees. Although small and medium-sized companies are outside the requirement, when providing services or supplying goods to large companies, they must sign contracts adjusted in accordance with the act.

Companies included in the above criteria that do not comply with the act may be fined up to €400 million or up to 2% of their average global annual turnover, in addition to the possibility of not being able to enter into contracts with the German government for a period of up to 3 years, whilst individuals will be subject to fines of up to €800,000.00.

The Federal Office of Economics and Export Control in Germany was tasked with monitoring companies’ compliance with the Act.

Norwegian Transparency Act

On June 10, 2021, the Norwegian Parliament passed and “Act on business transparency and work with fundamental human rights and decent work” (the “Transparency Act”).²⁷⁸ The law entered into force on July 1, 2022. It covers companies in Norway and foreign companies that sell products and services and must pay tax in Norway and are of at least a minimal size. Companies subject to the Act are required to carry out due diligence and publicly report on these efforts, as well as having a duty to provide information on how they address actual and potential adverse impacts.

The law requires that covered companies:

identify and assess actual and potential adverse human rights impacts that the entity has caused or contributed to, or to which the entity is directly linked;
take steps to cease, prevent or mitigate adverse impacts;
track the effectiveness of those steps;
report publicly on the entity’s structure, operations, and processes for handling actual and potential adverse impacts; actual adverse impacts and significant risks of adverse impacts; steps taken or planned to cease or mitigate such risks; and the effectiveness of those measures; and
provide for or cooperate in remediation where appropriate.

V. Heat Adaptation Strategies

Heat adaptation strategies vary in nature and can range from behavioral methods of reducing body temperature to technological solutions to policy interventions. Some of these strategies are low to no cost and easy to implement, while others require significant investments of resources. Preparation and information sharing are a critical first step.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

Disaster risk reduction in this context refers to policy and planning strategies that aim to anticipate and reduce heat-related risks during extreme heat events. Disaster preparedness will be a key part of any heat adaptation strategy regardless of location.

Credible efforts to reduce the risk of heat-related disasters should include plans in line with the “priorities for action” outlined in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the primary instrument for international disaster preparedness and response.²⁷⁹

First, governments must understand the risks posed by extreme heat events.²⁸⁰ Assessments of heat risk should include identification of, and consultation with, at-risk communities to better understand their needs and experiences. Findings should be made publicly available and accessible.

Governments must also take steps to educate the public and public officials at all levels about the risks posed by extreme heat events and steps people can take to help protect themselves. This can be done through public information campaigns and integration into classroom learning. Outreach efforts should include a combination of print, digital, and direct messaging in multiple languages to ensure that no one is left out.

Second, governments must strengthen risk governance to manage the risk of a heat-related disaster.²⁸¹ Heat Action Plans (HAPs), which are designed to guide heat wave preparation and emergency response across government, are key to streamlining the management of heat-related risks. All state, local, and national governments should develop HAPs following guidance issued by the World Health Organization.²⁸²

Many cities around the world have already developed heat action plans. Ahmedabad, India, was the first city in a developing country to develop a HAP.²⁸³ The strategy, often cited as a model plan, has significantly reduced heat-related mortality since its implementation in 2013. The plan’s primary strategy is education and outreach, but it also includes long-term solutions, such as investment in white roofs. Notably, the Ahmedabad HAP includes the identification of a lead officer to execute the plan. New York City, too, has a robust HAP, launched in 2017, that includes strategies for mitigation, adaptation, and monitoring. Notably, the plan includes energy subsidies for low-income households to help reduce the cost of cooling.²⁸⁴

White Roofs in New York City. Photo via Google Earth, June 2022 via Landsat / Copernicus.

As part of any heat action plan, governments should establish a designated official to coordinate heat-related risk reduction and management efforts across government agencies and ensure proper funding of their activities. Among the cities that have appointed designated chief heat officers are North Dhaka, Bangladesh; Santiago, Chile; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Melbourne, Australia; Athens, Greece; Phoenix, Arizona; and Miami, Florida.²⁸⁵

Heat action plans, however, are only effective if fully funded and implemented. Ensuring the effectiveness of the plans has been challenging. A March 2023 analysis of HAPs in 37 Indian municipalities by the Centre for Policy Research, a non-profit think tank based in India, found that a majority are underfunded and not regularly updated.²⁸⁶

As is true of the heat action plan overall, a chief heat officer can only be effective if his or her office is fully funded and staffed, has a cooperative relationship with the municipality, and the municipality itself is focused on resilience. Speaking to Climate Rights International, Bushra Afreen, Chief Heat Officer for North Dhaka, noted that “lack of dedicated manpower for heat adaptation and action” in the municipalities of Dhaka North makes her job much more challenging.²⁸⁷

Third, governments must invest in disaster risk reduction to ensure resilience.²⁸⁸ This should include investing in and maintaining effective heat wave early warning systems (HEWS) that can predict heat waves in advance, communicate understandable and actionable warning messages to the public, including those most at-risk, and empower people to act to reduce potential harm.²⁸⁹

Santiago, Chile, for example, has developed a regional protocol for extreme heat, under which the National Service for Disaster Prevention and Response (SENAPRED) uses a tiered system to issue alerts on days forecasted to be 24°C (75°F) or higher. The local and regional governments then communicate this message to the general public and take measures agreed upon in a regional protocol. On “Green Alert” days, where temperatures exceed 33°C (91.4°F), authorities disseminate preventative care measures and guidance, while on “Red Alert” days, where temperatures exceed 35°C (95°F), they suspend outdoor activities and, notably, prepare public and private healthcare facilities for the possible influx of patients with heat-related illnesses.²⁹⁰ Other governments should take note and similarly provide additional supports to increase the capacity of healthcare workers and facilities ahead of extreme heat events.

Government warnings should include information about when extreme heat events are expected, along with advice on ways to keep cool and how to access cooling centers if they are available. Warning systems must be devised to reach populations most at risk. For example, Canada has developed guidance for public health and emergency management officials on how to ensure that communications about health risks during extreme heat events reach all populations, including all heat-vulnerable individuals.²⁹¹

Early warning systems should also include a detailed plan to check in on at-risk populations. In Kassel, Germany, a hotline calls residents during extreme heat events and suggests measures on how to best cope.²⁹² And in New York City, neighbors can sign up to check in on one another through a program called Be a Buddy NYC.²⁹³

Though heat early warning systems have been proven to reduce heat-related mortality,²⁹⁴ a 2023 assessment by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction found that only 52% of countries report having these systems in place.²⁹⁵ In 2022, the UN announced a joint project with the World Meteorological Organization to ensure every person on Earth has access to early-warning weather systems in the next five years.²⁹⁶

Fourth, governments must look to enhance future disaster preparedness during disaster recovery. In part, this can be done by assessing the effectiveness of the above measures in reducing heat-related impacts and updating plans to address any gaps in response.

Photo of extreme heat warning sign displayed Los Angeles. Photo by Chris Yarzab via Flickr. CC BY 2.0 DEED.

Basic Cooling Practices

Government and employers should provide clear information about the risks of heat and basic steps individuals can take to reduce their risk. For example, simple steps such as limiting exercise, avoiding direct sunlight, increasing water intake, and taking frequent breaks can help reduce the health risks from extreme heat. Short term cooling solutions such as wearing lightweight, water-soaked clothing, and immersing hands and feet in cold water can help reduce core body temperature.²⁹⁷

Those in control of indoor spaces such as indoor workplaces, schools, and nursing homes can implement a variety of evidence-based heat stress reduction and monitoring strategies. For example, businesses and schools can help protect against excessive indoor heat through simple measures such as:

Making sure windows can be opened or closed to prevent hot air from circulating or building up.
Using blinds or reflective film on windows to shade workers or students from the sun.
Placing workstations and desks away from direct sunlight and heat sources.
Putting insulation around hot pipes and machinery.
Offering flexible schedules so workers and students can work at cooler times of the day.
Providing free access to drinking water and access to clean and safe bathrooms.
Relaxing dress codes to allow to loose-fitting and light-weight clothing.

As discussed below, heat stress reduction measures can also be implemented at the building level, for example by improving ventilation, increasing shading, and changing the materials used in the building.

While basic cooling practices alone will often be insufficient to fully protect against the risks of extreme heat, they can help reduce those risks, and it is critical that governments ensure all individuals and businesses are aware of the risks of heat and of the basic steps they can take to protect themselves, those who work for them, and those under their care.

Passive Cooling Strategies

Passive cooling refers to no- or low-energy interventions used to decrease temperature. To reduce the growing need for carbon-intensive air-conditioning, sustainable heat mitigation strategies need to be incorporated into a wider range of solutions at the individual, building, and urban level. Passive solutions can reduce indoor air temperatures by an average of 3-5°C (5.4-9°F), and can reduce energy demand by up to 20%.²⁹⁸ Governments have a crucial role to play in both implementing passive cooling strategies and putting in place regulations or subsidies to require or encourage the use of passive cooling strategies. Passive cooling solutions include strategies like nature-based solutions and material efficiency improvements.²⁹⁹

Nature Based Solutions

Governments can and should prioritize nature-based solutions such as vegetation, shade, water features, and better ventilation, through regulation or otherwise.

Vegetation: Green roofs, or roofs covered with vegetation, can reduce roof temperatures by up to approximate 17-22°C (30-40°F).³⁰⁰ This can considerably reduce indoor air temperatures, as a significant amount of warming in a building occurs through the roof. When used widely, green roofs can reduce city-wide ambient temperatures by up to 3°C (5.4°F).³⁰¹

Similarly, planting and preserving large areas of trees and park surface area within neighborhoods can cool land surface temperatures by up to 12°C (54°F) compared to areas with no vegetation.³⁰² This is particularly important in combatting the urban heat island effect.³⁰³ Planting trees within cities can significantly cool the urban environment by shading streets and buildings, enhancing evaporative cooling, and reducing air temperatures through transpiration.³⁰⁴ On a normal sunny day, a single tree can transpire several hundred liters of water, which represents a cooling effect equivalent of two domestic air conditioners running for 24 hours.³⁰⁵

Despite the reported efficacy of urban green space, average global access has remained consistently low since 2015.³⁰⁶ At present, just 27 percent of major urban centers worldwide are considered at least “moderately-green.”³⁰⁷ Miami-Dade Country, Florida, is working to address both the Urban Heat Island effect and structural inequality by focusing the planting of trees in areas with the highest poverty rates.³⁰⁸

Shade: Mimicking nature-based cooling strategies, simple shading can significantly reduce indoor air temperatures.³⁰⁹ Louver shades (angled slats) can redirect heat away from a building.³¹⁰ Similarly, providing shaded spaces outdoors can reduce exposure to the sun and protect against heat illness.

Water: Water features (both indoor and outdoor) can provide evaporative cooling, which can significantly reduce temperatures at the hyperlocal level.³¹¹ Evaporative cooling occurs when a liquid evaporates and, in doing so, removes heat from a surface. This is similar to how the human body cools itself by sweating. Creating water bodies, such as lakes, canals, ponds and wetlands in urban areas, can have a significant cooling effect.³¹²

Wind: Designing cities to create natural ventilation corridors can enhance wind flow and reduce urban land temperatures.³¹³ This concept can be similarly applied to indoor areas by simply designing rooms with windows and doors across from one another to improve ventilation.³¹⁴

Material Efficiency

While building materials are vital to modern society, their production is an important source of greenhouse gases (GHGs). A more efficient use of materials in building and urban design not only has the potential to reduce GHG emissions but can also reduce the accumulation of heat. Below are several examples of material efficiency strategies relevant to heat:

Improve insulation to reduce heat absorption.³¹⁵ Because a significant amount of warming in buildings can come from the windows, the use of double-glazed windows can significantly reduce indoor air temperatures. Insulating roofs and doorways can similarly reduce uncontrolled airflow and keep indoor temperatures low.³¹⁶

Use light color coatings and reflective surfaces.³¹⁷ Studies show that the use of lighter color materials (or surface coverage with solar reflective coatings or light colored paints) can reduce material absorption of heat when compared to darker colors.³¹⁸ One study looking at the impact of passive cooling strategies on a garment factory in Bangladesh found that both white roofs and green roofs reduced indoor temperature by around 2°C (3.6°F).³¹⁹ Both Singapore³²⁰ and New York City³²¹ have been painting roofs white to try to lower temperatures in low-income housing.

Pave with permeable pavement, which reduces temperatures by evaporating stored water.³²² Paving with solar reflective materials rather than solar absorbent materials such as asphalt and tar can also help reduce temperatures. Los Angeles, California, is one of the few cities to have started installing “cool pavements,” and has found that doing so does have some impact on local air temperature.³²³

Photo of permeable pavement in New York City. Photo by CRI, April 2024.

Active Cooling

Active cooling refers to cooling mechanisms that require energy, like air conditioners and heat-pumps. Active cooling is the most effective way to prevent or limit exposure to extreme heat, but for many people it is not an option.

Of the 2.8 billion people living in the hottest regions of the world today, only eight percent have air conditioning.³²⁴ Between 1.8–4.1 billion people in low- and middle-income countries exposed to heat stress do not have any effective indoor cooling, and air conditioning is often unaffordable in these countries.³²⁵ At least 745 million people have no access to any form of electricity, much less electricity to power cooling.³²⁶ Even in wealthier countries, access to cooling often reflects existing societal inequalities, with the poor and marginalized less likely to live in air-conditioned homes or have access to other forms of cooling, or unable to afford the energy cost of running an air conditioner even if they have one.

Load shedding, a form of power regulation in which authorities interrupt the power supply to avoid excessive load on the power sources, can exacerbate the problems of heat. Muhammad Talha, an 11-year-old student in Karachi, told Climate Rights International that while the classrooms were really hot even when fans were running, load shedding made the situation worse:

It becomes really hard to study because of the weather. We experience frequent load shedding at our school for three hours in the morning from 7:30-10:30 and then from 12 pm to 3 pm. That’s when the fans stop working because we do not have a generator.”³²⁷

According to Afreen Bushra, the Chief Heat Officer for Dhaka North, load shedding has a disproportionate impact on the poor, as those in wealthier areas often have generators to ensure continuous power access.³²⁸

Improving Access to Cooling

One widely used adaptation method in areas with sufficient energy is the use of cooling centers.³²⁹ A cooling center (or “cooling shelter”) is a location, typically an air-conditioned or cooled building that has been designated as a site to provide respite and safety during extreme heat. This may be a government-owned building such as a library or school, an existing community center, religious center, recreation center, or a private business such as a coffee shop, shopping mall, or movie theatre. Cooling centers have been used in many cities in the US and, increasingly, in northern Europe³³⁰ and in Asia. During the intense heat in the summer of 2023, China opened underground air raid shelters for use as cooling centers,³³¹ while authorities in Japan set up cooling shelters in a mix of public and private premises.³³² Phoenix’s heat action plan includes provisions to turn vacant buildings into cooling centers for the unhoused.³³³

The mere existence of a cooling center or cooling refuge is insufficient, however. The center must be part of a larger heat action plan that makes the population aware of the risk of extreme heat and of the availability of cooling centers, and ensures that the most vulnerable have access to those centers.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control found that barriers to access or use of cooling centers include limited access to transportation, fear of leaving home or inability to leave home, not wanting to leave pets behind, populations not self-identifying as vulnerable, and the general stigma of cooling centers being just for “old people.”³³⁴ Many of these barriers can be overcome with cooling center education and proper planning. For example, the county of Santa Clara, California, provides free rides to cooling centers during extreme heat events.³³⁵

Where governments lack resources to provide an air-conditioned refuge, even a shaded area with seats, free water, clean bathrooms, and good ventilation can provide some relief from the heat for those whose homes are overheated or who need to cool down when working or running errands outdoors.

Governments can also improve access to cool spaces by retrofitting homes. A program funded by the Victoria state government in Australia is retrofitting a “climate-safe room” in the homes of low-income residents, providing a space at home that where they can be protected from extreme heat. The retrofitting involved draught proofing, insulation, an efficient heat pump for cooling, and solar panels to reduce the energy bill.³³⁶

Electric fans can also provide relief from the heat. Though fans do not actually cool the air, they can be used to help reduce levels of perceived heat, and can reduce body temperature by facilitating sweat evaporation in some ambient temperatures. Because electric fans are comparatively cheaper and therefore more accessible than other cooling interventions, like air conditioning, they are an important heat adaptation intervention for many people around the world. However, fans are not recommended for use in temperatures over 35C, as they can actually cause heat gain when used in extreme heat.³³⁷

Public cooling center in Oregon. Photo via Flickr, Multnomah County Communications. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED.

Drawbacks of Reliance on Active Cooling

Active cooling, particularly through air conditioning, raises concerns because of the associated energy demands. Fueling these interventions can often times rely on fossil fuels, and in turn can release heat-trapping emissions. This phenomenon is referred to as the “air conditioning paradox:” rising temperatures increase the use of air conditioning and other cooling mechanisms, while the use of those mechanisms (directly or indirectly) increases outdoor temperatures. Active cooling can contribute to warming in three ways.

First, air conditioners amplify the urban heat island effect. Many air conditioners work by cooling indoor air and releasing heat into the outdoor environment. In cities, where temperature averages are already higher due to the urban heat island effect, the cumulative result of this release of heat adds up. One study found that in some urban areas, air conditioning systems increased the mean air temperature by over 1°C (1.8°F).³³⁸

Second, the energy required to power active cooling technologies can drive up emissions significantly. At present, air conditioners and other cooling technologies are mostly powered by fossil-fuel based energy. This creates a negative feedback loop: a warming climate increases the use of AC; the use of AC increases fossil fuel consumption; fossil fuel consumption causes more warming.

Globally, there are more than 2 billion cooling appliances in use today.³³⁹ That number is growing by up to ten devices per second.³⁴⁰ Use of air conditioners and electric fans to stay cool accounts for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings around the world.³⁴¹ While the primary drivers of this growth are rising temperatures and humidity levels, affordability, ageing populations, population growth, and urbanization all play a role. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that the use of air conditioners will become one of the top drivers of global electricity demand by mid-century. By that time, emissions from air conditioning and refrigeration are projected to increase by 90% above 2017 levels.³⁴²

Finally, air conditioners, refrigerators, and heat pumps use harmful, heat-trapping greenhouse gases known as refrigerants. Refrigerants are chemical compounds used for cooling. Many cooling technologies produced in recent history rely on refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs),³⁴³ which have a high global warming potential because their heat-trapping effect is 1,000 times the strength of carbon dioxide.³⁴⁴

Some scholars argue that the “air conditioning paradox” extends beyond the points outlined above, suggesting that dependence on air conditioners can increase vulnerability to extreme heat. One study found that dependence on air conditioning can increase both the risk of, and risks during, power outages.³⁴⁵ This dependence can make communities more vulnerable to other disasters that may prolong power cuts. The same study concluded that increased air conditioning usage makes people physically and mentally dependent on cooling, leaving them more vulnerable to urban heat.³⁴⁶

Sustainable Cooling

To address the air conditioning paradox, it will be necessary to phase down use of heat-trapping refrigerants with high global warming potential and transition to high efficiency cooling.³⁴⁷ The legally-binding Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which aims to reduce consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 80 percent by mid-century, is a powerful first step. The UN reports that this reduction in HFC production and consumption will avoid up to 0.4°C (0.7°F) of warming this century, and that this impact can “more than double” with transition to high efficiency cooling.³⁴⁸ Governments should also mandate and tighten minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for air conditioners.³⁴⁹

Cooling technologies can also be adapted to run using renewable energy. Solar cooling (cooling technologies powered using solar energy), for example, often provides cooling using predictable and fixed-price energy.³⁵⁰ Small-scale solar cooling, with individual homes or groups of homes powered via solar energy, is also more feasible in areas without reliable power supplies. Solar cooling can be combined with district cooling to further improve sustainability.³⁵¹

District cooling is a method of cooling that involves an extensive network of pipes. Water is chilled at a central location, the district cooling plant, and travels through pipes to surrounding buildings, cooling indoor spaces.³⁵² The water is then recycled and chilled again, repeating the process. District cooling can reduce energy use and emissions by up to 50% when compared to traditional, individual cooling structures. It is best suited to use in dense urban areas, and has had success in cities like Medellin, Cartagena, Santiago, Marrakech, Tunis, as well as a number of cities across India.³⁵³ District cooling has also been successfully implemented in the Marina Sands area of Singapore.³⁵⁴

VI. Recommendations

Recommendations for National Governments

Prepare, commit to, and implement ambitious climate action plans to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C (2.7°F), including by taking immediate action to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.

Develop a National Cooling Action Plan (NCAP) to reduce energy-related emissions from cooling and improve access to cooling.

- Mandate and tighten minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for cooling appliances.

- Consider integrating these plans into enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.

Promote international cooperation, including universal ratification of the Kigali Amendment; international collaboration on cooling technology research; and promotion of global initiatives for efficient cooling, including the Biarritz Pledge (a statement drafted by France and launched at the 2019 G7 Summit).

For developed countries: Provide financial support to assist with the implementation of heat-adaptation efforts in developing countries, as agreed to in the Paris Agreement.

For developed countries: Advance multi-country funding initiatives to enhance access to cooling, such as the World Bank Cooling Facility, which was created in 2021 with $157M from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and will focus efforts on solutions in nine developing countries over ten years.

Recommendations for Governments at all Levels

Create and fund a Heat Action Plan (HAP) to respond to and reduce heat-related impacts. While the details of each heat action plan will vary according to context, each plan should:

- Define conditions at which to execute the plan based on the best available science. Non-temperature heat-risk variables such as humidity and air quality should be taken into account, in addition to temperature, in determining the cut-off for activating the plan.

- Define roles and responsibilities for relevant response actors.

- Include plans to increase capacity and resilience of service providers that may experience increased demand during extreme heat events (including healthcare and energy providers and emergency response teams).

- Understand and communicate population-specific risk.

- - Identify available heat-related data. Conduct a baseline risk assessment in consultation with at-risk communities and persons to define heat impacts in your jurisdiction and better understand social determinants of heat-related risk. Make findings publicly available and accessible.

- - Educate government officials, first responders, healthcare workers, caretakers, community organizations, and the public about heat-related risks, how to recognize heat-related illness, and steps individuals can take to protect themselves.

- - Identify community centers that will be able to provide access to resources, information, water, bathrooms, and cooling (either through active means such as air conditioning or passive means such as shading and ventilation) during extreme heat events. Create a plan to provide accessible transport to and from these facilities. Where feasible and sustainable, consider the use of mobile cooling centers.

Establish and maintain a Heat Early Warning System (HEWS). Ensure that the system is devised to reach populations most at risk, including those living in poverty, those with disabilities, and marginalized communities, and include advice on how to lower body temperature and how to access cooling centers if they are available.

Ensure that climate change and disaster risk reduction measures, including Heat Action Plans and Heat Early Warming Systems, are age and gender-responsive and disability-inclusive.

Champion occupational safety: Enact legally binding heat stress standards for indoor and outdoor workers based on actual weather conditions consistent with international best practice standards. The authorities should engage heat-stress specialists in drafting legislation, which should include meaningful sanctions for non-compliance. International labor standards, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155), can help to guide governments when designing policies to tackle the occupational safety and health hazards associated with heat stress. Heat stress impacts on the labour force and on occupational health and safety (include maximum temperature thresholds) should also be integrated into labour laws.

- Work limitations should be based on actual weather conditions and the use of a widely-accepted and data-backed measure of heat stress, such as Wet Bulb Global Temperature (WBGT), to calculate appropriate work to rest ratios.³⁵⁵ The standard should also consider the additional risk posed by radiant heat exposures, metabolic heat from high workloads, and the heat burden from clothing that impairs sweat evaporation.

- Establish a maximum temperature, consistent with the science and the local conditions, at which outdoor work will be halted. If feasible, adjust hours to the cooler hours of the day.

- Require all employers to give workers easy access to free water and electrolyte beverages, where available, and mandate hydration breaks to ensure that workers can take breaks to access water without being penalized.

- Require all employers to provide rest breaks at a rest-to-work ratio commensurate with the risk from heat and humidity exposure. Employers should be required to ensure that employees are not penalized in any way for taking rest and water breaks.

- Require all employers to ensure that workers can take necessary bathroom breaks, which might have to be more frequent as a result of water consumption, without being penalized in any way for doing so. Require that bathrooms are easily accessible within the allotted breaktime.

- Ensure that workers who will be working in the heat, particularly new workers, are given an appropriate acclimatization period to ensure that their bodies have time to adapt.

- Workers and employers should be trained in the prevention and detection of heat-related illness and what to do in case of a medical emergency.

- The standard must include protection for workers from job loss or loss of pay for complying with the heat standard requirements or for reporting unsafe conditions. This should include financial penalties for employers who retaliate against workers.

- Establish a system by which workers can safely report concerns about employer compliance with heat-related safety measures.

Enact regulations that prevent power companies from turning off residential power supplies for non-payment during heat waves.

Recommendations for City and Local Governments

Establish a chief heat officer to coordinate heat-related risk reduction and management efforts across government agencies and ensure that the official has both the funding and support needed to effectively function.

Mandate urban planning that improves heat wave resilience, including via investment in green spaces in residential neighborhoods, particularly in low-income and otherwise marginalized communities and urban heat islands.

Invest in the development of new carbon-neutral, climate-resilient social housing that is affordable for all, and in retrofitting low-income housing to be climate-safe.

Invest in safe, healthy and climate resilient schools, including classrooms with adequate heating and cooling and access to sufficient, safe and acceptable drinking water and sanitation facilities.³⁵⁶ Prioritize underserved communities for climate-proofing and renovation of schools.

Ensure that urban planning policies integrate climate change, disaster risk reduction, emergency response, land use, transport, location of services and infrastructure equity, and also include in those efforts any informal settlements and their residents.

Prioritize at-risk communities for investment in development of sustainable, including passive, cooling solutions.

Increase subsidized or government-funded renovations of social housing to make it climate-safe and energy efficient, targeting neighborhoods at highest risk of adverse impacts of heat waves, and ensure marginalized communities have access to these programs.

Work to reduce demand for active cooling by investing in passive cooling strategies.

Update building codes to include standards for energy-efficiency cooling in new buildings. This includes introducing or updating labelling policies that indicate a building’s efficiency rating.

Where active cooling is available and resources allow, provide energy subsidies for low-income households to help with cooling costs and ensure that power companies do not cut off power for non-payment during heat waves.

Collect and regularly publish data on the impact of heat waves, including accurate reporting of heat-related mortality.

Recommendations for Public and Private Authorities, Supervisors and Managers in Charge of Schools, Prisons, Nursing Homes and Other Institutional Settings

Educate all staff about the dangers of extreme heat, the signs of heat stress, and what to do if those under their supervision show signs of heat stress.

Take steps to adapt your facilities to mitigate the risks of extreme heat, maximizing passive cooling techniques such as increasing shading, ventilation and air flow.

Resources permitting, install sustainable active cooling powered by renewable energy.

Ensure that all those under your supervision have access to free, clean drinking water.

- For nursing homes, prisons, and schools serving very young children, ensure that water is brought to those unable to get it themselves and assistance is given to drink it if needed. Carefully monitor urine output and color during heat waves as a warning sign of dehydration.

Relax dress and/or uniform mandates to allow individuals to dress for the heat.

Relax any required labor or physical activities during peak heat hours.

Assess individual vulnerability to heat stress and prioritize the most vulnerable for access to cooling.

For schools, establish a maximum indoor temperature, consistent with science and the local conditions, at which either class will be moved outdoors to a shaded area or students will be dismissed.

- If school is cancelled due to heat, take steps to enable students to continue learning while school is closed, either through take-home work or, where feasible, online learning.

For prisons, comply with all relevant regulations related to worker heat exposure.

Recommendations for Companies

Conduct due diligence in your own operations and your supply chains to determine whether employees are at risk of violation of their human rights due to extreme heat and take action to mitigate any risks that you identify.

Establish and enforce policies to protect all workers against heat stress.

Provide heat stress training for all workers and supervisors. Training should include:

- Recognition of the signs and symptoms of heat-related illnesses and administration of first aid;

- Causes of heat-related illnesses and how to minimize the risks of such illnesses;

- The role that personal protective equipment can play in adding to heat stress, and the need to reduce workload when working in PPE in hot conditions;

- The importance of acclimatization;

- The importance of immediately reporting to a supervisor any signs of heat-related illness in themselves or others; and

- How to respond to symptoms of heat-related illness.

Where work is indoors, take steps to adapt facilities to the risk of extreme heat, through ventilation, cool roofs, and active cooling where feasible, or through other context- appropriate actions.

Ensure that all workers have close and easy access to free, clean, drinking water and are able to take water breaks without being penalized.

Ensure that all workers have access to toilets and are able to take toilet breaks without being penalized.

Build in an appropriate acclimatization period for all employees who will be working in the heat to ensure that their bodies have time to adapt.

Ensure that all workers are given rest breaks at a rest-to-work ratio commensurate with the risk from heat and humidity exposure. Work limitations should be based on actual weather conditions and the use of a widely-accepted an data-backed heat index, such as the Wet Bulb Global Temperature (WBGT) heat stress index, to calculate appropriate work to rest ratios.³⁵⁷ The standard should also consider the additional risk posed by radiant heat exposures, metabolic heat from high workloads, and the heat burden from clothing that impairs sweat evaporation. Workers should not be penalized in any way for taking rest breaks.

For outdoor workers, ensure that any rest area is shaded, easily accessible, and encourage removal of personal protective equipment during rest periods to aid in heat loss.

Establish a maximum temperature, consistent with the science and the local conditions, at which outdoor work will be halted. If feasible, adjust hours to the cooler hours of the day.

Ensure workers continue to be compensated for work lost while complying with heat safety standards.

Acknowledgements

This report was researched and written by Cara Schulte, researcher at Climate Rights International and Linda Lakhdhir, Legal Director. It was reviewed by Brad Adams, Executive Director. Emily Rehberger, associate, contributed to the logistics and production.

Climate Rights International would like to thank the following people who provided reviews and comments on the report: Dr. Laura Kwong and Dr. Carly Hyland, Assistant Professors of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley; Abhiyant Tiwari, lead climate resilience and health consultant at NRDC India; and Louis Blumberg, Climate Policy Strategist. We would also like to thank Juanita Constible, Senior Advocate, Environmental Health, at NRDC, Owen Gow, Deputy Director, Extreme Heat Initiative, Arsht-Rock Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council, and Alfredo Moreno, Director of Communications & Development Associate, La Isla Network, for their advice and input into the report.

Annex I: Selected Resources

Many governments, academics and non-governmental organizations are working to develop methods and recommendations to protect individuals from the human rights risks of extreme heat. For reference, a selection of publications that include specific recommendations or guidance is collected in this annex. Also collected below is some of the existing reporting on heat and human rights by international NGOs, and applications in climate litigation outlining the impact of heat on specific populations.

General Guidance

Global Heat Health Information Network (website), https://ghhin.org

Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation, Extreme Heat Initiative (website), https://onebillionresilient.org/project/extreme-heat/.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, “Preparing for the Heatwaves of the Future,” https://www.ifrc.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/Extreme-Heat-Report-IFRC-OCHA-2022.pdf.

Heat Action Plans and Early Warning Systems

World Health Organization, “Heat-Health Action Plans: Guidance,” 2008, https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/107888/9789289071918-eng.pdf?sequence=1.

Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan, updated 2019, available at https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ahmedabad-heat-action-plan-2018.pdf.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, “Early Warnings for All (EW4All)”, https://www.undrr.org/early-warnings-for-all.

Guidance for Cities

International Federation of the Red Cross, “Heat Wave Guide for Cities,” https://www.ifrc.org/document/heat-wave-guide-cities

UNEP Handbook for Cities,” https://www.unep.org/resources/report/beating-heat-sustainable-cooling-handbook-cities.

ESMAP. 2020. “Primer for Cool Cities: Reducing Excessive Urban Heat,” Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) Knowledge Series 031/20. Washington, DC: World Bank, https://www.esmap.org/primer-for-cool-citiesreducing-excessive-urban-heat#:~:text=Urban%20cooling%20solutions%20can%20be,with%20mitigating%20urban%20heat%20impacts

Guidance for Health Care Providers

Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) and Americares, “Extreme Heat Toolkit for Healthcare Providers, Patients, Clinics,” https://www.americares.org/what-we-do/community-health/climate-resilient-health-clinics/#toolkit.

Sustainable Cooling

UN Environment Program, “Global Cooling Watch 2023,” https://www.unep.org/resources/global-cooling-watch-2023

Sustainable Energy for All, “Chilling Prospects: Tracking Sustainable Cooling for All 2022,” https://www.seforall.org/our-work/research-analysis/chilling-prospects-series/chilling-prospects-2022

International Energy Agency, “The Future of Cooling, IEA,” 2018, https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-cooling.

United Nations Environment Programme and International Energy Agency, “Cooling Emissions and Policy Synthesis Report,” UNEP, 2020, Nairobi and IEA, Paris, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/cooling-emissions-and-policy-synthesis-report.

Natural Resources Defense Council, “It Takes a Village: Advancing Hariyali Clean Energy Solutions in Rural India, report, January 2021, https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/takes-a-village-clean-energy-solutions-202101.pdf

Protecting At-Risk Populations

World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNFPA and Human Reproduction Program, “Protecting maternal, newborn and child health from the impacts of climate change: A call for action,”2023, https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/374272/9789240085350-eng.pdf?sequence=1.

UNICEF, “Protecting Children from Heat Stress A technical note,” https://www.unicef.org/media/139926/file/Protecting-children-from-heat-stress-A-technical-note-2023.pdf.

Sustainable Energy for All, “Gender and Cooling,” https://www.seforall.org/system/files/2021-03/Gender-Cooling-SEforALL.pdf.

UN Climate + Rights of People with Disabilities report https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g21/099/23/pdf/g2109923.pdf?token=hfhX0zJfIAInGQ8Uxy&fe=true

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Analytical study on the promotion and protection of the rights of older persons in the context of climate change, A/HRC/47/46, Apr. 30, 2021, https://web.dev.ohchr.un-icc.cloud/en/documents/reports/ahrc4746-analytical-study-promotion-and-protection-rights-older-persons-context.

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Analytical study on the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of climate change,” A/HRC/44/30, Apr. 22, 2020, https://web.dev.ohchr.un-icc.cloud/en/documents/thematic-reports/analytical-study-promotion-and-protection-rights-persons-disabilities.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Analytical study on the relationship between climate change and the full and effective enjoyment of the rights of the child,” A/HRC/35/13, May 4, 2017, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g17/110/91/pdf/g1711091.pdf?token=28WFB79ZRblFAdLluR&fe=true.

Report of the UN Secretary General, “The impacts of climate change on the human rights of people in vulnerable situations,” A/HRC/50/57, May 6, 2022, https://www.undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F50%2F57&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, “Climate change and poverty,” A/HRC/41/39, July 17, 2019, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2F39&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False.

Report of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, Claudia Mahler, “Human rights of older persons in the context of climate change-induced disasters,” A/HRC/78/226, July 25, 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a78226-human-rights-older-persons-context-climate-change-induced.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, “Impacts of climate change and climate finance on indigenous peoples’ rights,” A/HRC/36/46, Nov. 1, 2017, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F36%2F46&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False.

Occupational Health and Safety

Global Heat Health Information Network, “Manage and Adapt to Heat at Work,” https://ghhin.org/at-work/.

International Labor Organization, “Ensuring Safety at Work in a Changing Climate,” report, 2024, https://www.ilo.org/publications/ensuring-safety-and-health-work-changing-climate

ENBEL, Global Disaster Preparedness Center, https://preparecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ENBEL-Policy-brief-4_Occupational-heatstress-in-outdoor-wirks.pdf.

UNDP, Climate and Labor, Impacts of Heat in the Workplace, https://www.undp.org/publications/climate-change-and-labor-impacts-heat-workplace

La Isla Network, the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University, Migrant Clinicians Network, and the National Center for Farmworker Health, “Heat is Here, Let’s Protect Workers: Joint Brief on Heat-Related Illness Prevention Among Agriculture and Construction Workers in the United States,” policy brief, Aug. 28, 2023, https://laislanetwork.org/group-of-organizations-call-for-updated-heat-protections-for-construction-and-agriculture-workers-in-the-united-states.

Reporting on Heat and Human Rights

Amnesty International, “A Burning Emergency: Extreme Heat and the Right to Health in Pakistan” June 4, 2023, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa33/6823/2023/en/.

Human Rights Watch, “Protecting People from Extreme Heat: 10 Steps for Governments to Address the Human Rights Impacts of the Climate Crisis,” July 21, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/07/21/protecting-people-extreme-heat.

Human Rights Watch, “Spain: Inadequate Response to Heatwaves, Support People with Disabilities at Risk to Climate Change,” June 26, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/26/spain-inadequate-response-heatwaves.

Human Rights Watch, ”Canada: Disastrous Impact of Extreme Heat, Failure to Protect Older People, People with Disabilities in British Columbia” October 5, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/05/canada-disastrous-impact-extreme-heat.

White Ribbon Alliance, “Birth in a Burning World,” https://whiteribbonalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Birth-in-a-Burning-World.pdf.

Fair Square, “This Weather Isn’t for Humans: COP28 Site Workers at Critical Risk of Serious Heat Injury,” Oct. 20, 2023, https://fairsq.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/FS_This-weather-isnt-for-humans_V3-no-images.pdf.

Klimaseniorinnen v. Switzerland, Application on behalf of the plaintiffs (outlining impact of heat on older women); https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/non-us-case-documents/2020/20201126_Application-no.-5360020_application.pdf.

Report of the UN Secretary General, “Adverse impact of climate change on the full realization of the right to food,” A/HRC/53/47, June 19, 2023, https://www.undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F50%2F57&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, “Impact of climate change on the right to food,” A/70/287, Aug. 5, 2015, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2F70%2F287&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False.

'I Can't Cool'

Extreme Heat and Human Rights in the Context of Climate Change

Table of Contents

Summary

Climate Change and Rising Heat

Rising Heat and Human Rights

Recent Occurrences of Extreme Heat

Governments, Companies, and Others Must Take Action to Protect Against Foreseeable Harm from Extreme Heat

Methodology

I. Impact of Extreme Heat on Humans and Human Rights

Right to Health

How Heat Affects the Body

Right to Life

Right to a Safe and Healthy Work Environment

Right to Education

Right to Water

Right to Food

Rights of Future Generations

II. Impact of Extreme Heat on Specific Populations

Children

Older People

Outdoor Workers

Indoor Workers

People Living in Poverty

Persons with Disabilities

Pregnant People

Women

People Living in Buildings not Designed for Extreme Heat

Indigenous Peoples

III. The Responsibilities of Governments to Take Action to Protect Against Foreseeable Human Rights Harms Resulting from Extreme Heat

Common but Differentiated Legal and Policy Responses

IV. Human Rights Responsibilities of Companies

European Union Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive

French Due Diligence Law

German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act

Norwegian Transparency Act

V. Heat Adaptation Strategies

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

Basic Cooling Practices

Passive Cooling Strategies

Nature Based Solutions

Material Efficiency

Active Cooling

Improving Access to Cooling

Drawbacks of Reliance on Active Cooling

Sustainable Cooling

VI. Recommendations

Recommendations for National Governments

Recommendations for Governments at all Levels

Recommendations for City and Local Governments

Recommendations for Public and Private Authorities, Supervisors and Managers in Charge of Schools, Prisons, Nursing Homes and Other Institutional Settings

Recommendations for Companies

Acknowledgements

Annex I: Selected Resources

General Guidance

Heat Action Plans and Early Warning Systems

Guidance for Cities

Guidance for Health Care Providers

Sustainable Cooling

Protecting At-Risk Populations

Occupational Health and Safety

Reporting on Heat and Human Rights

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