What do chief heat officers mean for climate change - and why does this new role matter?

Cities worldwide are taking a proactive approach in response to the threat of global warming with the appointment of dedicated 'chief heat officers'.

Freetown in Sierra Leona is one of the most recent to recruit one, with the aim of finding new ways to cool the city. So with this new role on the rise, what exactly is a global heat officer and why is the position so important?

A chief heat officer is hired to address rising temperatures driven by climate change. Their purpose is to raise awareness of extreme heat risks to protect the most vulnerable citizens within their city. They plan and coordinate short and long-term responses to heat waves, as well as implementing long-term risk-reduction projects.

The recent emergence of chief heat officers worldwide is part of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance strategy to provide a billion people with climate resilience solutions by 2030.

In April, Miami, Florida appointed Jane Gilbert, who was previously chief resilience officer. City Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the purpose of the chief heat officer was to “expand, accelerate, and coordinate our efforts to protect people from heat and save lives".

In September, Phoenix, Arizona announced that a professor of environmental science at the Arizona State University, David Hondula, would become the city’s new chief heat officer. The position is the first to be fulfilled as part of the Council Office of Heat Response and Mitigation rather than through the not-for-profit efforts of the Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

In July, as fire ravaged the city of Athens, it announced that Eleni Myrivili would become its chief heat officer. Greece is the first country in Europe to appoint someone to the role. Myrivili said: “We’ve been talking about global warming for decades, but we haven’t talked much about heat."

In October, Freetown, in Sierra Leone became the first country in Africa to create the role, appointing Eugénia Kargbo. "Climate change is a global issue, just like COVID, so we need to sound the alarm and fight this collectively because sooner or later it will affect us all," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Chief heat officers have the task of finding solutions to cooling their urban environments. These can range from making it easier for policymakers to put emergency measures in place through to things such as tree-planting initiatives.

North America experienced the hottest June and July on record, with temperatures soaring 2.77°F (1.54°C) above average. Worldwide, temperatures in July 2021 were recorded at the highest level in more than 140 years at 62.07°F (16.7°C).

And a recent study by the Resilience Center and Vivid Economics revealed that six times more Americans could die of extreme heat deaths by 2050 - 59,000 people.

While the primary mission of a chief heat officer is related to climate change, the role also includes an important social component of reducing inequalities.

When Miami appointed its chief heat officer, the Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said: "We know extreme heat does not impact people equally – poorer communities and Black and Hispanic people bear the brunt of the public health impacts."

Extreme heat is predominantly affecting poorer communities globally. According to a report from the UN Environment Programme, the growth of climate impact is outpacing efforts to adapt, particularly in developing countries. The report says that developing countries will need five to ten times more funding than they have currently to manage climate impacts.

It is anticipated that the role of chief heat officer will be adopted by other cities soon. Kate Gallego, the Mayor of Phoenix, told Axios: "We have gotten a lot of inquiries.”

"Almost every city has a traffic safety person and an air quality person. We think there might be a day when most cities, particularly those most impacted, have a person looking at heat issues."

To further inspire more cities to take action in the face of climate change, a partnership between the World Economic Forum and the Government of Colombia created the Uplink BiodiverCities Challenge in collaboration with Salesforce. The challenge aims to accelerate the transition to nature-positive cities or 'BiodiverCities' by 2030 with 31 of the world's biggest cities already committed. In addition, the Forum has also launched The Future of Cities initiative to support cities with their strategies for economic growth and recovery post-covid.