September 11, 2023 A Systems-Thinking Approach: Extreme Heat, Climate Change, and Learning to do what Works A portion of this article is featured in the fall / winter 2023 issue of Y Magazine (www.ontarioplanners.ca/y-magazine). We are all vulnerable to extreme heat. I could feel the heat against my skin as I poured milk onto my cereal at 6:58 a.m. My first apartment, all mine, 11 floors up in the heart of downtown Hamilton, a city I had grown to love dearly. That apartment stole my heart with its sunset-facing windows, but the June heat rendered the sun an enemy even with the blinds closed. I did a quick scan of my flat to make sure all four fans were on full blast before I left for my 9 to 5 — only to return to a sauna. Eleven floors up with no air conditioning proved to be physically and mentally difficult as the summer raged onwards. No sleep, no appetite, and no motivation — the warmth drained every ounce of energy I had until there was nothing left. I felt sick most of the time, like a zombie going through the work day. My hobbies included opening my freezer to feel cool for a second and putting frozen vegetables on my forehead. I thought a lot about my community that summer, the impacts heat had on those who occupied the rooms above and below me. Those without housing, older residents, and those who lived alone or in precarious housing situations1 — all robbed of air conditioning and any relief on days where the temperature was relentless. It’s a known fact that climate change impacts those of different genders, ethnicities, ages, and disabilities differently2 — and that immigrants and people with a low income are most likely to live in the hottest urban areas.3 If I, an active and healthy 25 year old, was feeling the physiological pressure from extreme heat, I couldn’t imagine how others in my building and community who were more vulnerable were feeling. Shade and air conditioning alone weren’t always enough to combat the extreme heat. The mental turmoil and stress on my body were overwhelming,4 and I wasn’t even working outdoors. I wasn’t even directly in the sun. I had the ability to change my environment if needed. As we write this, wildfires are spreading across Canada. As of mid-day on Thursday, June 8, 2023, 431 wildfires are burning in nine provinces and two territories, of which 234 are out of control.1 The ecological and human impact is immense and impossible to account for properly at this time. Climate change in the 2020s and beyond is set to bring increasing heat, dry conditions, and wildfires to much of the country. This article is about how treating climate change as a separate crisis from housing, access to public space, and many other areas of infrastructure planning leaves greater swaths of our communities more vulnerable — but it does not have to be this way. Socio-economic disparity and increasing heat: a deadly combination There is no denying the aggression of the sun, especially in Ontario’s urban centres that seem to be getting hotter every year.2 Alarmingly, Canada is warming at twice the global rate.3 As reported in July 2020, approximately seven out of 10 people live in Canada’s metropolitan areas where the “urban heat island effect” is concentrated, resulting in potential health impacts for millions of people. According to the 2021 Ontario Census, the average age of Ontarians is nearly 42 years old, with approximately 18 per cent of our population over 65.4 Of the approximately 73 per cent of Canadians who live in dense urban centres, 17 per cent live in buildings that are five or more stories high. This is important because some of the more commonly recommended interventions such as tree planting have limitations based on building heights.5 According to Statistics Canada, in 2019, only six out of 10 households had a cooling unit. The lower a family’s income, the lower the likelihood of having AC. This is also a key risk factor for Indigenous urban residents and communities, where extreme heat is also impacting livelihoods, cultural services, and land-based activities due to ecological impacts, particularly in combination with other climate-related events like wildfires and drought.6 In addition, we know indoor and outdoor temperatures can vary greatly, with a “lag” time in indoor temperature reduction even when outdoor temperatures fall and more heat retention in taller buildings.7 Building design and performance have a key role in this feature, which goes hand in hand with indoor air quality — another major risk disproportionately impacting low-income residents and exacerbated by climate change, both in cases of wildfire as well as generally. Understanding these connections allows for more effective interventions with cascading benefits, such as HVAC improvements and wide-scale rollout of high-quality air filtration. “Disabled people won’t survive climate change if it isn’t in the plan for us to do so. And you can’t plan for us without us.” -Gabrielle Peters, Vancouver City Planning Commissioner and Policy Analyst. Provincial planning requirements alongside local climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies have helped to mainstream climate change considerations into policy, providing a through-point for planning considerations that filter down into the development approvals process. A core challenge is that we are not looking at climate adaptation as a component of a system — connected in myriad and inextricable ways to the housing crisis, accessibility and disability rights, transportation justice, food security and clean water supply, health care access, and the intersections between racial discrimination and income disparity. While this is a story about extreme heat, it is also a story about how our broader adaptation response needs to think bigger and engage meaningfully with the root causes of vulnerability. To frame climate adaptation in simpler terms: making meaningful gains in climate adaptation requires housing justice. We see this in the need for rental protections and anti-displacement policies and practices to prevent people from being evicted for attempting to install lifesaving cooling and the significantly greater risk of death and heat stress among homeless residents and disabled residents who are already disproportionately in core housing need across Canada.9,10,11,12 While Ontario’s recent moves in this regard could help, they may also be held up in cases of disputes.13 The Ontario Human Rights Commission has stated air conditioning to be a human right in the context of climate justice and the most effective lifesaving measure an extreme heat event.14,15 Lindsay’s story brings this home for us — we are all vulnerable to heat without access to cooling. This is not to say that mechanical cooling is the only form of adaptation or that no other heat mitigation is needed, but rather that it needs to become standardized and supported by additional adaptive measures to address system efficiency and energy poverty and manage duration of use. Unfortunately, we often see air conditioning framed as a form of adaptation that is costly, adds carbon emissions to the atmosphere along with heat released to building exteriors, and places a significant burden on the electrical grid — all while never questioning whether those with air conditioning have a right to it. Furthermore, the evidence we have from contexts where energy use has been restricted is quite grim. For example, consider the consequences of a social and financial campaign in Japan to reduce electricity consumption during a heat wave in the aftermath of the Fukushima Power Plant disaster, which led to an increase in deaths and illness from heat stress: “The reduction in a representative Japanese person’s capacity to adapt to extreme climate caused by energy-saving behaviours is nearly equivalent to sending a representative American back 10 years ago by a time machine.”16 Indeed, access to air conditioning has cut premature deaths in the US by over 80 per cent since the 1960s.17 Certainly, the issue of electrical grid strain as a result of increased demand for cooling is real, one that goes to the heart of energy resiliency. The technologies now available, including heat pumps and more efficient devices, can help mitigate this concern, alongside integrating passive design for communities and individual buildings to be more energy efficient. We need to plan in a more concerted way for larger renewable energy installations integrated into community facilities, schools, and parking lots; district energy for new developments; and other ways to equitably secure access to electricity. In a Western capitalist system of practice, we often decentralize the responsibility for climate adaptation to individuals and those who are most impacted by it, leaving people to their own devices to find their way through extreme heat, cold, and storm events and the mental and emotional toll that comes with them. This is simply unsustainable, and we need to reckon more actively with the ways that climate injustice manifests. Co-designing for Adaptation The good news is that there is a lot we can do to work across sectors and disciplines, all levels of government, and within planning to integrate better decision making and preparedness. A memo co-authored by Vancouver City Planning Commissioners Gabrielle Peters and Amina Yasin provides a core list of close to 50 recommendations to municipal staff for addressing extreme heat and air quality that provides a valuable starting point for systems thinking on this subject.18 The complex synergies between the built and natural environments are vital to understand. For instance, studies have shown that while more densely designed neighbourhoods might create urban heat islands resulting in energy hot spots with a concentrated need for cooling, overall, sprawling metropolitan areas with lower densities result in a greater number of extreme heat events compared to more compact metropolitan areas.19,20 We need to model and map how climate change will manifest at the neighbourhood scale to inform decision making. This includes leveraging spatial data such as federal datasets like the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation and Climate Atlas of Canada to map socioeconomic, demographic, and micro-climate neighbourhood characteristics and plan for allocation of resources, including tree planting.21,22 We can draw on research alongside direct engagement with communities, and in particular, those with lived experience of marginalization, to integrate evidence-based approaches into our long-term planning. In addition to addressing the immediate need for equitable access to indoor cooling, such as supplementing and facilitating access to subsidies and tax rebate programs and creating accessible cooling spaces for people who are unhoused, we can take a more integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to planning for climate resiliency. There are multiple gains to be had in terms of cooling, stormwater management, air quality, mental and physical well-being, and social cohesion from equitably distributed and accessibly designed public spaces. Increasing tree canopy cover and shading, optimizing building and paving materials, installing heat pumps and adopting district energy are all meaningful actions that can be used in conjunction to mitigate climate change impacts and manage energy demand for cooling. We also need to connect to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, those relating to health and justice in how we work with Indigenous knowledge holders to address disparities in climate change impacts experienced by urban and on-reserve Indigenous community members.23 Traditional knowledge has much to offer in taking an intersectional approach to understanding complex systems and making space for joy and beauty in ways that are also life preserving. Adaptation planning that is truly equity focused requires involving those with lived experience and a nuanced understanding of how policy can be shaped to create effective outcomes. We need to actively reckon with how historic and contemporary planning creates the conditions for disparity in climate change impacts and engage with communities on the design of effective interventions for both indoor and outdoor spaces. This means centring health, well-being, and accessibility and considering barriers to the resources and spaces we are designing — be they physical, social, financial, cultural, or communication related. The lived experience reports of those who survived the heat dome in B.C. in the summer of 2021 are crucial for us to hear.24 They speak clearly on the inadequacy of the emergency measures that were implemented, like cooling centres and transportation systems that were not actually accessible, limitations on social connections for safety, and inadequate communications. We can learn from their experience what would actually work: equitably distributed cooling infrastructure, not just cooling centres; a resilient response that considers compounding effects like the COVID-19 pandemic, holiday closures, and wildfire smoke; and attention to the differing needs of urban and rural communities, among other recommendations.25 Fundamentally, as professional planners, we cannot be at ease with any approach that further entrenches inequality with respect to access to cooling and privileges the lives of some over others on the basis of material conditions. References 1 Globe and Mail. Live wildfire updates in Canada for June 8: U.S. firefighters en route, says Trudeau (June 8, 2023). https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-wildfires-smoke-map-june-8-2023/ 2 Climate Atlas of Canada. Urban Heat Island Effect. https://climateatlas.ca/urban-heat-island-effect 3 Canada in a Changing Climate. https://changingclimate.ca 4 Statistics Canada. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm?MM=1 5 Science Direct. Quantifying tree canopy coverage threshold of typical residential quarters considering human thermal comfort and heat dynamics under extreme heat. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360132323001270 6 Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples’ Health in Canada. https://www.nccih.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/10367/Climate_Change_and_Indigenous_Peoples_Health_EN_Web_2022-03-22.pdf 7 Smargiassi A, Fournier M, Griot C, Baudouin Y, Kosatsky T. Prediction of the indoor temperatures of an urban area with an in-time regression mapping approach. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2008 May;18(3):282-8. doi: 10.1038/sj.jes.7500588. Epub 2007 Jun 20. PMID: 17579651. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17579651/ 8 Human Rights Watch. Statement by Gabrielle Peters at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) on November 5, 2021. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/05/statement-gabrielle-peters-un-climate-change-conference-cop26-november-5-2021 9 CBC News. Facing eviction for using air conditioning, residents of a Parkdale building speak out (June 28, 2022). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/eviction-air-conditioning-parkdale-1.6504633 10 TVO Today. How soaring temperatures are affecting Ontario’s homeless (Jul 25, 2019). https://www.tvo.org/article/how-soaring-temperatures-are-affecting-ontarios-homeless 11 Capital Daily. “They were trying to figure out how to stay alive”: Disability advocates slam heatwave response (Jun 7, 2022). https://www.capitaldaily.ca/news/disability-advocates-slam-heatwave-response 12 Inclusion Canada. Meeting Canada’s Obligations to Affordable Housing and Supports for People with Disabilities to Live Independently in the Community (May 15, 2017). https://inclusioncanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Right-to-Housing-for-Persons-with-Disabilities-May-15-2017.pdf 13 Province of Ontario. Ontario Strengthening Protections for Tenants (Apr 5, 2023). https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002902/ontario-strengthening-protections-for-tenants 14 Ontario Human Rights Commission. https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc-statement-human-rights-extreme-heat-waves-and-air-conditioning 15 Bouchama A, Dehbi M, Mohamed G, Matthies F, Shoukri M, Menne B. Prognostic Factors in Heat Wave–Related Deaths: A Meta-analysis. Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(20):2170–2176. doi:10.1001/archinte.167.20.ira70009. 16 Goujun He and Takanao Tanaka. Energy Saving May Kill: Evidence from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident. https://epic.uchicago.cn/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/Energy-Saving-May-Kill_Evidence-from-the-Fukushima-Nuclear-Accident_Jan-2023.pdf 17 Barreca, Alan I. and Clay, Karen B. and Deschenes, Olivier and Greenstone, Michael and Shapiro, Joseph S., Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the U.S. Temperature-Mortality Relationship Over the 20th Century (January 10, 2015). Journal of Political Economy. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2192245 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2192245. 18 Vancouver City Council. Planning for Extreme Heat and Air Quality Mitigation in Vancouver. https://council.vancouver.ca/20210720/documents/b5.pdf 19 Shreevastava, A., Bhalachandran, S., McGrath, G.S. et al. Paradoxical impact of sprawling intra-Urban Heat Islets: Reducing mean surface temperatures while enhancing local extremes. Sci Rep 9, 19681 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56091-w 20 Stone B, Hess JJ, Frumkin H. Urban form and extreme heat events: are sprawling cities more vulnerable to climate change than compact cities? Environ Health Perspect. 2010 Oct;118(10):1425-8. doi: 10.1289/ehp.0901879. PMID: 21114000; PMCID: PMC2957923. 21 Statistics Canada. Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation: Dataset and User Guide. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/45200001 22 Climate Atlas of Canada. https://climateatlas.ca 23 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf 24 CBC. Hundreds died because they couldn’t escape B.C.’s extreme heat. Alerts wouldn’t have saved them, advocates say (Courtney Dickson, June 8, 2022). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-changes-extreme-heat-2022-1.6480993 25 Government of BC. Lived Experience of Extreme Heat in B.C.: Final Report to the Climate Action Secretariat (April 2022). https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/climate-change/adaptation/resources/lived_experience_of_extreme_heat_in_bc_final_report.pdf The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author(s), and may not reflect the position of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute. 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