An app that helps you escape the heat.
A small insurance policy that pays out to working women when temperatures soar.
Local laws that help people who work outside on hot days get water and shade.
As dangerous heat becomes harder to ignore, a variety of practical innovations are emerging around the world to protect those most vulnerable. What's remarkable is that these efforts don't require untested technology; instead, they're based on ideas that are practical and already known to work.
These are just some of the examples of the need to adapt to new dangers from extreme heat, which has been on full display in recent weeks, claiming the lives of countless pilgrims, tourists and election workers around the world and causing an increase in emergency room visits for heatstroke in the United States.
The World Meteorological Organization says heatwaves currently claim more lives than any other extreme weather event, and has called for more “tailored weather products and services” to protect people's health, including easy-to-use tools to call for help.
There's an app for that
Ifigenia Keramitsoglou is an atmospheric physicist specializing in remote sensing data, looking at the world from great distances.
But much of her work isn't remote at all: Dr. Keramitzoglou led a team that developed a mobile phone app to give users real-time information on how to stay cool.
Enter your location into Extrema Global and it will show you a color-coded view of the outside temperature, air quality, and your level of risk for heatstroke. Cool spots will appear on the map, including parks, pools, fountains, and air-conditioned public spaces like libraries. Tell the app where you want to go (for example, from your apartment to a museum), and it will give you three options: the fastest route, the coolest route, and the coolest route with rest stops.
This was extracted from a mountain of useful data – weather data, tree maps, the location of municipal swimming pools – that Dr Keramitsoglou, director of research at the National Observatory of Athens, knew existed out there but hadn't been collected in a useful place.
“There's nothing better than getting all this information into people's hands,” she said in a recent interview, as warm winds that portend wildfires blew through Athens. “My motivation was to get what I know into people's hands so that it can be useful and can save lives.”
Greece has been on the frontline of extreme heatwaves and wildfires in recent years, with temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) this month and several tourists across the country apparently dying of heatstroke, with authorities in Athens closing the tourist hotspot of the Acropolis as a precaution.
An early version of Extrema Global was launched in Athens in 2018. The app has since expanded to Paris, Milan and Rotterdam, and similar apps have sprung up in other cities: Melbourne has an app that maps shaded routes for pedestrians and cyclists, while Barcelona has a mobile app that maps the city's fountains.
Small policy, big impact
Hansa Ahir, a 55-year-old father of two, leaves for work before sunrise to keep his town from overflowing with rubbish.
A small insurance program is helping to keep her out of debt.
Ahir sifts through piles of trash in the well-known Indian city of Ahmedabad to collect recyclables — soda bottles, tomato tins, glass bottles — and carries them home to wash, sort, and sell. On average, she earns 200 rupees (about $2.40) a day.
She said the heatwaves have cut her income in half since March. It's too hot to work in the mornings, her arms are covered in red rashes, there are no public taps to refill her water bottle, and she's feeling unwell.
She is holding on thanks to a new micro-insurance programme offered to her by the Self-Employed Women's Association, which has 2.9 million members, that acts as a safety net on dangerously hot days. The policy costs 200 rupees for a year's coverage.
“I was very surprised. I had never heard of insurance covering you if you can't work because of the heat,” Ahir said by phone this week. “I thought, 'I'll give it a try. It's just one day's pay.'”
Not only was the insurance product available, but it was also important that it was offered through an organization she trusted.
The idea for the micro-insurance was proposed to the women's group by Cathy Baumann-McLeod, an American climate finance expert who heads the non-profit organization Climate Resilience for All. She raised $250,000 to cover the cost of the insurance. The women's group launched it as a pilot program in 2023. This year, 50,000 people have signed up, including market vendors, subsistence farmers and waste recyclers like Ahir-san.
Bowman-McLeod said it was a “bold decision” for the women to shell out for this brand new insurance. Given the risks, she said such bold decisions are necessary multiple times. “We're all learning to deal with the heat. It's a new reality we're all facing.”
Here's how the program works: When temperatures are predicted to reach dangerous levels, Duck will receive a warning message on his mobile phone. If the temperature reaches that threshold, the insurance pays out.
In May, when the city's maximum temperature hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) for three consecutive days, Ahir received a 400 rupee payment in her bank account. She used it to buy medicines and groceries. In June, when the daytime maximum temperature soared to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, she received another 750 rupees. She used it to pay her rent.
Legal right to shade
Like many children of farm workers, Edgar Franks began helping his parents in the fields before he was even in middle school, harvesting the early summer asparagus in eastern Washington, then the late summer strawberry harvest in western Washington, and returning home to Texas by September for school.
Now Franks, 44, is helping a new generation of farmworker families adapt to new dangers: extreme temperatures mixed with wildfire smoke that hangs thick over the fields.
Franks organized farmworkers and pressured Washington state to enact new rules to protect farmworker health. When temperatures reach 80 degrees Fahrenheit, farmworkers are legally entitled to shade, water, and paid rest breaks.
Washington is one of only five states in the nation to have enacted outdoor worker protection rules, in contrast to the rollback of similar rules in Texas and Florida, where state law now prohibits local ordinances that gave outdoor workers the right to require water and breaks on extremely hot days.
According to the International Labour Organization, 2.4 billion workers worldwide are at risk of heatstroke, with outdoor workers in agriculture and construction being some of the most vulnerable.
Washington state's heat rules were first implemented in 2008, but the previous 89-degree standard didn't go far enough to protect workers who worked outdoors. Farmworkers picketed outside the state's Department of Labor offices, and several unions and community groups, including Franks' union, One Nation Families for Justice, petitioned state officials.
The current emergency rules, which lowered the standards, were finalized in 2023. “People are still not familiar with the rules. It's still almost new,” said Tomás Ramón Vásquez, one of the founders of Familias Unidas.
Ramon, 39, is no stranger to heat perils. More than 20 years ago, high temperatures exacerbated a long-term drought in his hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico. Neighbors struggled to grow corn, and wells dried up. With no other work nearby, Ramon left his hometown for the berry fields of California, Oregon and Washington state.
Franks says summers have changed since he was a teenager working in the fields. “It's gotten a lot worse. You can really tell,” he said. “Even when it's 80 degrees, you can still feel the heat.”
