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Urban

Climate-resilient cities

The Climate Centre provides guidance and resources for inclusive urban climate action at scale. The team engages in policy dialogue, leading research efforts and supporting action on the ground. We partner with Red Cross Red Crescent components, cities, universities, and various urban networks to reduce climate impacts on vulnerable city-dwellers.

The urban team has a special focus on the urban heat-risk and coastal hazards. 

The Climate Centre is part of the leadership team of the influential Global Heat Health Information Network. Through innovative tools and engagement modalities with a wide range of stakeholders, our urban team has helped National Societies and partners accomplish significant results in many cities in South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The urban team has been leading the 2 June global Heat Action Day to inspire locally led heat risk awareness campaigns since 2022.

Key links

Coastal Cities and Extreme Heat Project
Urban Action Kit
HEAT: Through the Eyes of the Most Vulnerable – Perceptions and Pathways to Action
Heat Action Day
Heat Adaptive Architecture Competition
Heat communication strategies
Heat health threshold studies
Heatwave guides for cities
City heatwave guides for Red Cross Red Crescent branches

Popular perceptions of heat risk
Studies

Popular perceptions of heat risk

Studies of how people in different parts of the world perceive the heat dangers they face, and subsequent heat communication and behavioural change, have guided input to heat action plans (pictured, Nepal). The Climate Centre urban team has also compiled studies providing a bottom-up perspective on extreme heat, serving serve as a foundation for informed dialogue, strengthened partnerships, and decisive steps towards protecting communities from one of the most urgent threats of the climate crisis.

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Managing cascading risks in cities

The PARATUS  project, supported by the European Commission, aims to increase the preparedness of first and second responders facing multiple hazards and reduce the risks in various sectors. A cloud-based service platform is online for case study areas in the Caribbean and Alpine regions as well as Istanbul and Romania. The Climate Centre helped design and facilitate learning labs (pictured) to explore adaptation and mitigation, and coordinated development of a Stress Testing Guide to assess the resilience of cities.

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Action on heat for cities

Actions plans for heat in cities in three continents were designed with technical support from Climate Centre experts. The urban team supports National Societies, local governments and other partners in tailoring the finished plans to the context in countries including Bangladesh, Colombia, Honduras, Indonesia, Nepal and Tanzania (pictured, heat planning in Unguja, Zanzibar).

The Climate Centre also provided technical support to the National Societies of all these countries (except Nepal) in designing the Coastal City Resilience and Extreme Heat Action Project in nine cities, concluding in 2025. We helped them partner with the local government, meteorological agencies and other stakeholders to carry out city-wide risk assessments and design solutions.

Heat Action Day 2025
News story

Heat Adaptive Architecture Competition

In 2025, the Climate Centre launched the HAAD aiming to stimulate creative and adaptive thinking by architecture and urban design students to come up with new ways to tackle the heat risks. Two of the three overall winners drew inspiration from the informal settlements of Bangladesh (pictured) – a country severely affected by climate change and rising seas, while the third hailed from Kenya’s Kajiado county and entered a design to help schools be resilient to heat.

Read about the 2026 HAAD
Heat Adaptive Architecture Competition
Video

Heat Action Day 2022 in Honduras

Traditional Honduran dancers mark Heat Action Day 2024 on 2 June in an event jointly organized by the Red Cross.

Images of Heat Action Day