Mayors Join Coalition to Combat Urban Heat, Other Climate Risks

Five US mayors Thursday will launch a national multiyear project to help combat rising temperatures and flooding—made worse by climate change—that pose dire threats to low-income and minority communities.

The announcement brings Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, New Orleans, and Columbia, South Carolina, into the Smart Surfaces Coalition, formed four years ago and now including more than 40 public health, environmental justice, and other groups.

The Smart Surfaces group provides tools for analyzing risks and offering a range of cost-effective solutions cities can use to mitigate increased flooding and the emergence of heat “islands"—urban areas as much as 7 degrees hotter than surrounding areas—posing disproportionate health impacts to communities of color and other marginalized populations that have borne the brunt of pollution.

The coalition joins the American Lung Association, National League of Cities, World Resources Institute, and environmental equity groups including WE ACT for Environmental Justice and the Oikos Institute, which helps community faith groups harness civil and financial assets for social change.

Leveraging the coalition’s resources can help “cool our neighborhoods during hot Texas summers, reduce residents’ energy expenses, and minimize the impact of flash flooding events,” according to Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson (D).

The five cities join Baltimore, which has worked with the coalition to do a detailed analysis of heat-reducing projects for three lower-income neighborhoods that could range from tree plantings to reflective roof, highway, and other road surfaces. Other projects include more porous pavement to curb groundwater pollution and flood risks.

The analysis, which helps determine the most cost-effective projects, “is especially important for our underserved and under-resourced neighborhoods” that lack options to escape rising heat, Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway (D) said. But he said the effort also could pay economic dividends given Baltimore’s tourism industry also faces threats from rising summer temperatures.

The Republican mayor of Columbia, Daniel Rickenmann, said the South Carolina capital will partner with the coalition to assess heat reduction and other resilient measures, with an eye toward reducing inequity.

A 2022 study found as much as an 18.5 degree Fahrenheit temperature disparity between the city and surrounding areas, Rickenmann said in an interview. Summer temperatures can easily reach 100 degrees in the city, he said, “and some of our challenged communities are living in housing that doesn’t have the same weatherization and the capacity to reflect heat and the efficient appliances” of wealthier areas, he said.

More reflecting rooftops as well as weatherization could also help those communities economically, he said. Poorer residents currently “can end up paying more in their electric bill than they do in rent” for cooling.

Cost-Effective Resiliency

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) said climate change is no longer a far-off, future threat as her city’s residents are already fending off multiple impacts from rising global temperatures.

“Temperatures continue to rise, and more frequent and intense storms have led to both coastal and inland flooding” across many neighborhoods, Wu said.

Reflective roofs and highway surfaces, along with rain gardens and more porous roads, could help cool cities by as much as 5 degrees; reduce flooding and the resulting growth of mold in city homes and other buildings; and make communities healthier, said Greg Kats, Smart Surfaces Coalition founder and former financing director for the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Such projects can provide as much as a 10-to-1 benefit for each dollar spent mitigating climate-related costs while also adding much-needed urban jobs, according to Kats.

Extreme heat in urban areas is a growing concern for public health and environmental justice groups, particularly given the disparate impacts on disadvantaged populations.

Hotter New York City summers produce inequitable public health impacts, as Black New Yorkers are far more likely to die from heat stress, with death rates double that of White New Yorkers, according to the city’s 2022 Heat-Related Mortality Report.

Extreme heat is an almost daily threat in many US urban areas, especially for children and the elderly “who are condemned to live in intolerable heat, stuck inside for longer and hotter summers,” said Pastor Jon Robinson, senior program director for the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The same communities “are covered in heat-absorbing black tarmac and are largely barren of trees and shade, which are the result of a century of racist and discriminatory public policy, reinforced by decades,” he said, including racial redlining and other discriminatory housing practices.