Passive Urban Cooling Solutions

By 2070, 1 out of every 3 people worldwide will live in areas with mean annual temperatures of more than 29°C – temperatures that are more than double what most humans have lived in for most of human history. These conditions currently existing in under 1% of the Earth today. Rising temperatures will have a profound effect on human health, economic productivity, and nearly every facet of urban life. Technical and policy solutions are needed now to cool our urban areas and to help populations adapt to rising temperatures. In 2020, to encourage more rapid adoption of urban cooling solutions to improve the heat resiliency of cities, the World Bank published a detailed handbook covering the characteristics of rising urban temperatures, the challenges it presents, and ways cities can respond: Primer for Cool Cities: Reducing Urban Heat (the Primer). Developed by the World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and the Global Sustainable Cities Platform (GSCP), the Primer details the functions, use cases, and economics of the major technical urban passive cooling solutions available to cities today. It articulates an approach to designing and implementing effective heat resiliency and urban cooling strategies and provides a list of urban cooling policies adopted by cities. Case studies are included throughout. 3b:

• To orient practitioners to the concept of urban heat and why it is an important “lens” through which to assess and address resiliency and sustainability in cities.
• To highlight the specific technical solutions to facilitate passive urban cooling and improve understanding of how they work, their benefits and costs, and considerations for use.
• To encourage the adoption of urban cooling policies via an inclusive, multi-stakeholder development process.
• To make people aware of the Primer and similar resources.