Cities around the world are facing more frequent and intense bouts of extreme heat, leading to an increasing focus on the use of air conditioning to keep urban areas cool.

With the UK having experienced its hottest summer on record in 2025, for example, there was a wave of media attention on air conditioning use.

Yet less than 5% of UK homes have air conditioning and those most vulnerable – older adults, low-income households or people with pre-existing health conditions – often cannot afford to install or operate it.

While air conditioning may be appropriate in certain contexts, such as hospitals, community spaces or care homes, it is not the only solution.

Our research as part of the IMAGINE Adaptation project shows that a universal focus on technical solutions risks deepening inequality and has the potential to overlook social, economic and environmental realities.

Instead, to adapt to record temperatures, our research suggests a keener focus on community and equity is needed.

Contextualising urban heat vulnerability

In the UK, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe. Moreover, the evidence points to significant disparities in exposure and vulnerability. By 2080, average summer temperatures could rise by up to 6.7C, according to the Met Office.

During the summer of 2023, around 2,295 heat-related deaths occurred across the UK, with 240 in the South West region. Older adults, particularly those over 65, were the most affected, government figures show.

A recent UN Environment Programme report highlights that there is an “urgent” need for adaptation strategies to deal with rising summer heat.

However, our research shows that framing air conditioning as the default solution risks worsening urban heat by increasing emissions and energy bills, as well as missing the opportunity to design more inclusive, human-centred responses to rising temperatures.

Addressing both gradual and extreme heat involves understanding who is most affected, how people move through cities and the role of social networks.

In recognition of this, cities around the world are already developing potential cooling strategies that combine low-emission interventions with community-based care.

Expanding the concept of ‘cool spaces’

In the UK, Bristol City Council is working on a “cool space” initiative with support from the European Research Council-funded project IMAGINE Adaptation.

The initiative aims to identify a network of public spaces that can offer respite during periods of extreme heat. These spaces can potentially include parks, libraries, community centres or even urban farms.

The map below shows how heat vulnerability varies across the city of Bristol, identifying neighbourhoods most at risk from current and future heatwaves.

But what makes a space “cool”? We used surveys, interviews and workshops to collectively come to an understanding of what a cool space means for Bristol communities.

What emerged from our work is that “cool” is about far more than temperature.

Shade, natural ventilation, seating, access to water and toilets all contribute to comfort, but they do not capture the full picture.

Social and cultural factors, such as whether people feel welcome, whether spaces are free to use or whether children can safely reach them, are equally important. For example, we found that while many community spaces are open to the public, people are often unsure whether they can spend time there without having to buy something.

Our research shows that the presence of a café, even unintentionally, can signal that time and space come at a cost. Clear signage, free entry, drinking water and toilets can help people feel that they are welcome to stay.

Additionally, our research highlights that it is important to recognise that public space is not experienced equally by everyone. Some city centre parks, for instance, may be seen as unwelcoming by people who do not drink alcohol or who feel uncomfortable around noise and large groups.

Creating cool spaces that serve the whole community involves understanding these dynamics and exploring more inclusive alternatives.

Connecting adaptation efforts

The importance of understanding the dynamics of adaptation efforts is especially relevant when considering children, as they are often more vulnerable to increasing temperatures.

At Felix Road adventure playground – one of the early pilot sites in Bristol – staff introduced shaded areas, drinking water and ice lollies to support children during hot weather.

However, adaptation does not just happen at individual sites, but between them, as connectivity to the playground by foot or public transport exposes children to the heat and traffic.

This highlights that adaptation to heat is a city-wide concern, as the effectiveness of individual cooling interventions can depend on both the space itself and how it can be accessed and used by vulnerable populations.

Buses and trains can become uncomfortably hot, making travel difficult for those most at risk. Our research suggests that for some, staying home might seem safer, but many lack cooling options.

Early discussions in the cool space trial show this is especially true for older adults, who also seek social contact alongside thermal comfort in community centres. Advice to stay home during heatwaves, without adequate cooling or guidance, therefore risks both physical harm and increased social isolation.

Relational approaches to adaptation

Viewing cooling as a social issue transforms how we approach urban adaptation and, more importantly, climate action.

Air conditioning reduces temperature, but it does not help foster trust or strengthen community ties. Our research shows that a well-designed community space, by contrast, integrates physical comfort with social support.

For example, they offer places where a parent can supervise children safely in water play, where an older adult might be offered a cold drink or a fan, or where people can simply rest without judgment. These small interactions, while often overlooked, can contribute to reducing heat stress, dehydration or social isolation during heatwaves, creating public spaces that are safer and more supportive for heat-vulnerable residents.

Cool spaces can also serve multiple roles. A library may host children’s activities or provide food support, while a community centre might offer advice on home cooling.

These spaces show that strong community relationships are key to real climate action, offering comfort, connection and practical help all in one place.

Our research shows that by embedding care into design, cities can build approaches to adaptation that go beyond temperature control, recognising the diverse needs of their communities.

However, to continue serving this role effectively, community spaces require ongoing support, including adequate funding, staffing and resources. Without such support, their ability to provide safe, welcoming and inclusive cooling environments for the most vulnerable can be limited.

Challenges and trade-offs

Our research finds that imagining “cool” adaptation is not without challenges.

Our reflections from the ongoing work in Bristol highlight the importance of context-sensitive, adaptive strategies that consider how people live and their needs and expectations, without neglecting the urgent demands of climate action and health protection.

What works in one neighbourhood may be unsuitable in another – and success cannot be defined solely by temperature reduction or visitor numbers.

Listening to communities, observing patterns of use and being willing to reconsider early designs through experimentation and learning are arguably essential for interventions that are socially, culturally and environmentally appropriate.

Climate change is already reshaping how cities function and how communities think and behave. Heatwaves are no longer rare events; they are increasingly intense and dangerous.

In this context, air conditioning may have a role in specific settings and for specific reasons, but it is not the sole answer. Our research shows it cannot replace locally grounded, inclusive and relational approaches to adaptation.

Bristol’s “cool spaces” initiative demonstrates that interventions are most likely to be effective when they are accessible, welcoming and build community, providing more than just shade or technical relief.
This requires investment, coordination and time, but also a shift in perspective: cooling is not just a technical challenge, but about how we look after one another and how we collectively imagine our public spaces in a changing climate.

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The post Guest post: Why cities need more than just air conditioning for extreme heat appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Guest post: Why cities need more than just air conditioning for extreme heat

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

EU sets 2040 goal

CUT CRUNCHED: The EU agreed on a legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% from 1990 levels by 2040, reported the EU Observer. The publication said that this agreement is “weaker” than the European Commission’s original proposal as it allows for up to five percentage points of a country’s cuts to be achieved by the use of foreign carbon credits. Even in its weakened form, the goal is “more ambitious than most other major economies’ pledges”, according to Reuters.

PETROL CAR U-TURN: Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has agreed to “roll back an imminent ban on the sale of new internal combustion-engined cars and vans after late-night negotiations with the leader of the conservative European People’s Party,” reported Euractiv. Car makers will be able to continue selling models with internal combustion engines as long as they reduce emissions on average by 90% by 2035, down from a previously mandated 100% cut. Bloomberg reported that the EU is “weighing a five-year reprieve” to “allow an extension of the use of the combustion engine until 2040 in plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles that include a fuel-powered range extender”.

CORPORATE PRESSURE: Reuters reported that EU countries and the European parliament struck a deal to “cut corporate sustainability laws, after months of pressure from companies and governments”. It noted that the changes exempt businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees from reporting their environmental and social impact under the corporate sustainability reporting directive. The Guardian wrote that the commission is also considering a rollback of environment rules that could see datacentres, artificial intelligence (AI) gigafactories and affordable housing become exempt from mandatory environmental impact assessments.

Around the world

• EXXON BACKPEDALS: The Financial Times reported on ExxonMobil’s plans to “slash low-carbon spending by a third”, amounting to a reduction of $10bn over the next 5 years.
• VERY HOT: 2025 is “virtually certain” to be the second or third-hottest year on record, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, covered by the Guardian. It reported that global temperatures from January-November were, on average, 1.48C hotter than preindustrial levels.
• WEBSITE WIPE: Grist reported that the US Environmental Protection Agency has erased references to the human causes of climate change from its website, focusing instead on “natural processes”, such as variations in the Earth’s orbit. On BlueSky, Carbon Brief contributing editor Dr Zack Labe described the removal as “absolutely awful”.
• UN REPORT: The latest global environment outlook, a largest-of-its-kind UN environment report, “calls for a new approach to jointly tackle the most pressing environmental issues including climate change and biodiversity loss”, according to the Associated Press. However, report co-chair Sir Robert Watson told BBC News that a “small number of countries…hijacked the process”, diluting its potential impact.

$80bn

The amount that Chinese firms have committed to clean technology investments overseas in the past year, according to Reuters.

Latest climate research

• Increases in heavy rainfall and flooding driven by fossil-fuelled climate change worsened recent floods in Asia | World Weather Attribution
• Human-caused climate change played a “substantial role” in driving wildfires and subsequent smoke concentrations in the western US between 1992-2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Thousands of land vertebrate species over the coming decades will face extreme heat and “unsuitable habitats” throughout “most, or even all” of their current ranges | Global Change Biology

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The years 2023 and 2024 were the warmest on record – and 2025 looks set to join them in the top three. The causes of this apparent acceleration in global warming have been subject to a lot of attention in both the media and the scientific community. The charts above, drawn from a new Carbon Brief analysis, show how the natural weather phenomenon El Niño, sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions from shipping, Chinese SO2, an eruption from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano and solar cycle changes account for most of the “unusual warmth” of recent years. Dark blue bars represent the contribution of individual factors and their uncertainties (hatched areas), the light blue bar shows the combined effects and combination of uncertainties and the red bar shows the actual warming, compared with expectations.

Spotlight

Climate change boardgames

This week, Carbon Brief reports on the rise of climate boardgames.

Boardgames have always made political arguments. Perhaps the most notorious example is the Landlord’s Game published by US game designer and writer Lizzie Magie in 1906, which was designed to persuade people of the need for a land tax.

This game was later “adapted” by US salesman Charles Darrow into the game Monopoly, which articulates a very different set of values.

In this century, game designers have turned to the challenge of climate change.

Best-selling boardgame franchise Catan has spawned a New Energies edition, where players may choose to “invest in clean energy resources or opt for cheaper fossil fuels, potentially causing disastrous effects for the island”.

But perhaps the most notable recent release is 2024’s Daybreak, which won the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahre award (the boardgaming world’s equivalent of the Oscars).

Rolling the dice

Designed by gamemakers Matteo Menapace and Matt Leacock, Daybreak sees four players take on the role of global powers: China, the US, Europe and “the majority world”, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Through playing cards representing policy decisions and technologies, players attempt to reach “drawdown”, a state where they are collectively producing less CO2 than they are removing from the atmosphere.

“Games are good at modelling systems and the climate crisis is a systemic crisis,” Daybreak co-designer Menapace told Carbon Brief.

In his view, boardgames can be a powerful tool for getting people to think about climate change. He said:

“In a video game, the rules are often hidden or opaque and strictly enforced by the machine’s code. In contrast, a boardgame requires players to collectively learn, understand and constantly negotiate the rules. The players are the ‘game engine’. While videogames tend to operate on a subconscious level through immersion, boardgames maintain a conscious distance between players and the material objects they manipulate.

“Whereas videogames often involve atomised or heavily mediated social interactions, boardgames are inherently social experiences. This suggests that playing boardgames may be more conducive to the exploration of conscious, collective, systemic action in response to the climate crisis.”

Daybreak to Dawn

Menapace added that he is currently developing “Dawn”, a successor to Daybreak, building on lessons he learned from developing the first game, telling Carbon Brief:

“I want the next game to be more accessible, especially for schools. We learned that there’s a lot of interest in using Daybreak in an educational context, but it’s often difficult to bring it to a classroom because it takes quite some time to set up and to learn and to play.

“Something that can be set up quickly and that can be played in half the time, 30 to 45 minutes rather than an hour [to] an hour and a half, is what I’m currently aiming for.”

Dawn might also introduce a new twist that explores whether countries are truly willing to cooperate on solving climate change – and whether “rogue” actors are capable of derailing progress, he continued:

“Daybreak makes this big assumption that the world powers are cooperating, or at least they’re not competing, when it comes to climate action. [And] that there are no other forces that get in the way. So, with Dawn, I’m trying to explore that a bit more.

“Once the core game is working, I’d like to build on top of that some tensions, maybe not perfect cooperation, [with] some rogue players.”

Watch, read, listen

WELL WATCHERS: Mother Jones reported on TikTok creators helping to hold oil companies to account for cleaning up abandoned oil wells in Texas.

RUNNING SHORT: Wired chronicled the failure of carbon removal startup Running Tide, which was backed by Microsoft and other tech giants.

PARIS IS 10: To mark the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, climate scientist Prof Piers Forster explained in Climate Home News “why it worked” and “what it needs to do to survive”.

Coming up

• 15-19 December: American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual meeting, New Orleans
• 15-19 December: 70th Meeting of the Global Environment Facility (Gef) Council, online
• 16 December: International Energy Agency: Future of electricity in the Middle East and North Africa webinar, online

Pick of the jobs

• Natural Resources Wales, senior strategic environmental policy specialist | Salary: Unknown. Location: Wales (hybrid)
• The Nature Conservancy, director of conservation – Mata Atlântica | Salary: Unknown. Location: São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and nearby cities, Brazil
• Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, postdoctoral researcher – downscaling for climate services | Salary: Unknown. Location: Barcelona, Spain

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

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The post DeBriefed 12 December: EU under ‘pressure’; ‘Unusual warmth’ explained; Rise of climate boardgames appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 12 December: EU under ‘pressure’; ‘Unusual warmth’ explained; Rise of climate boardgames

A major biodiversity fund – which could, in theory, generate billions of dollars annually for conservation – received its first donation of just $1,000 in November.

The Cali Fund was created under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the COP16 nature negotiations in Cali, Colombia, last year.

On 19 November, nine months after the fund officially launched, UK start-up TierraViva AI put forward the first contribution.

The $1,000 payment is an “ice-breaker”, the company’s chief executive tells Carbon Brief, aimed at encouraging others “who may be hesitating” to pay in.

The fund is designed to be a way for companies that rely on nature’s genetic resources to share some of their earnings with the developing, biodiverse countries where many of the original resources are found.

Companies use genetic data from these materials to develop products, such as vaccines and skin cream.

One expert describes the $1,000 as a good “first step”, but says it is “time for larger actors to step forward”. Another says it “squarely points the finger to the profit-making enterprises that are not contributing”.

The CBD is “pleased” about the first payment, a spokesperson tells Carbon Brief, adding that “many discussions” are ongoing about future donations.

Funding biodiversity action

Companies all around the world use genetic materials from plants, animals, bacteria and fungi often found in biodiversity-rich, global south countries to develop their products.

There are existing rules in place to secure consent and ensure compensation if companies or researchers travel to a country to physically gather these materials.

Today, however, much of this information is available in online databases – with few rules in place around access. This genetic data is known as digital sequence information (DSI).

The Cali Fund is part of an effort to close this loophole.

The COP16 agreement on the creation of the fund outlined that large companies in several sectors, including pharmaceutical, cosmetic, biotechnology, agribusiness and technology, “should” contribute a cut of the money they earn from the use of these materials. (See: Carbon Brief’s infographic on DSI.)

The money is intended to fund biodiversity action, with 50% of resources going to Indigenous peoples and local communities who protect vast swathes of the world’s nature and biodiversity.

These contributions, however, are voluntary.

The fund officially launched at the resumed COP16 negotiations in Rome in February 2025, where a spokesperson for the CBD said that first contributions could be announced in spring.

However, Carbon Brief reported in August that the fund was still empty.

On 19 November, the first contribution was announced during the COP30 UN climate summit. At $1,000, the amount was significantly lower than the potential millions that larger companies could pay in. 

A UK government press release described it as a “major milestone” that will “pav[e] the way for others to do the same and mobilise private sector finance for nature at scale”.

The payment was an “expression of our commitment to the objectives of the Cali Fund”, TierraViva AI chief executive Dr Paul Oldham wrote in a letter to the executive secretary of the CBD, Astrid Schomaker.

The $1,000 is an “initial contribution”, Oldham said, and the company plans to give more “as our business grows”. Based in the UK with a team of programmers in Nairobi, TierraViva AI was set up in 2023 and uses AI to support conservation.

An anthropologist who worked on Indigenous peoples’ rights in the Amazon, Oldham’s research helped inform the list of sectors most likely to “directly or indirectly benefit from the use of DSI”, including “generative biology” and AI companies.

Oldham noted in a speech at the sidelines of COP30 that although the company’s earnings are not large enough to meet the contribution thresholds set out in the Cali Fund agreement, its contribution showed that companies “of any size” can pay in.

He tells Carbon Brief that while “some” companies “are not serious about contributing and are seeking to delay” paying into the fund, others have different concerns, including the “need for a level playing field” and positive incentives to contribute:

“This will be hard-earned company money, so it’s reasonable enough to imagine that one of the first questions companies will want an answer to is: ‘well, what is this actually going to be spent on?’ And: ‘what is the benefit of this to us’, which is likely to vary by sector.

“In my view, the best way forward would be for companies that can to make contributions. That would give everybody, including governments, confidence that there might be constructive ways to address difficult topics.” 

Future contributions

A spokesperson for the CBD tells Carbon Brief:

“We are pleased that the Cali Fund is not only ‘open for business’, but that this first contribution also demonstrates it is fully operational. We thank and congratulate TierraViva AI for being the first company to step up.”

“Many discussions” are ongoing around future donations to the fund, the spokesperson says, and the CBD is “hopeful that further announcements can be made soon”, ahead of the next UN biodiversity summit, COP17, in October 2026.

Asked whether the CBD was expecting more contributions at this stage, the spokesperson says the fund was set up in “very short order” and that the first payment shows that companies are “able to contribute”.

US biotechnology company Ginkgo Bioworks was the first to pledge to contribute to the fund earlier this year, but has so far not put forward any money. The company did not respond to Carbon Brief’s request for comment.

Carbon Brief reported earlier this year that at least two companies were contacted by a UK department with opportunities to be involved in the Cali Fund before its launch in February, but no company took up on the offer.

The first contribution coming from a “startup that has just begun operations squarely points the finger to the profit-making enterprises that are not contributing”, Dr Siva Thambisetty, associate professor of law at the London School of Economics, tells Carbon Brief. Thambisetty adds:

“Strident cries of lack of legal certainty, unfairness or stacking obligations [combining responsibilities from different agreements and laws] would be more credible if industry organisations encouraged large firms that use DSI to begin contributing, instead of denying the last 20 years of multilateral [negotiations] that have led to this point.”

Dr June Rubis – Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) lead from Asia on the Cali Fund’s steering committee – welcomes TierraViva AI’s “first step”, but tells Carbon Brief that the “real test lies ahead” and that it is “now time for larger actors to step forward”.

She says the Cali Fund offers “clarity” on how the private sector can directly increase support to UN-backed funds at a time when “states are retreating” from their climate and biodiversity finance obligations:

“It’s not a voluntary offsetting scheme or a…risky or fringe fund; it’s a multilateral mechanism designed to meet the highest fiduciary and equity standards. We invite companies to see this not as philanthropy, but as participation in a globally endorsed system where trust is institutionalised, benefits are traceable and equity is operationalised.

“Contributing to the Cali Fund isn’t just ethical, it’s strategic. [But] It’s about more than funding: it’s about trust, power-sharing and making sure IPLCs are part of the decisions, not just the outcomes.”

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The post ‘Cali Fund’ aiming to raise billions for nature receives first donation – of just $1,000 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

‘Cali Fund’ aiming to raise billions for nature receives first donation – of just $1,000