Global boiling: Sydney hasn’t done enough to prepare for lethal heat

As United Nations scientists confirm early reports that July is likely to be the hottest month on record following heatwaves sweeping across the world, experts warn Australia is ill-prepared for the heat and putting the health of thousands at risk.

It’s possible that without emission cuts and as climate change worsens, Sydney’s temperature highs could rise from 26.4 degrees to 29 degrees by 2100 – a climate typically experienced in places such as Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

In a bid to beat the heat, councils across Sydney have trialled or implemented new heat-mitigating tools. These included covering roads in a sunscreen-like paint to lower temperatures or heat refuges, extending the hours of public facilities – such as libraries or pools – in summer and ensuring urban heat is considered as part of planning approvals.

Some councils are even planting more trees to increase shade, although research shows current efforts fall short of what is needed. One in seven Sydney suburbs is in dire need of more tree canopy cover and the lack of heat-mitigating shade is worst in the city’s poorest areas or areas facing new development.

But Sebastian Pfautsch, an associate professor in urban planning at Western Sydney University, said these small-scale projects are not enough. “The issue is so big and critical that it needs to be approached much more holistically. Just the nature of turning an agricultural field, forest or bushland into a city, means we are changing the thermal mass of the landscape,” he said.

“It’s the biggest land use change globally.”

Pfautsch said cities had fewer surfaces, including trees, to absorb moisture and sun, contributing to a warming effect.

Around the world, cities have come up with innovative large-scale ways to tackle the problem. For example, in the US, cities are painting their roofs white to lower temperatures by up to 3 degrees, and Paris is using pipes to pump cool water into the Louvre to protect artworks from the heat.

Buildings in the US and Europe have covered roofs with plants, allowing them to decrease stormwater run-off, save energy, reduce pollution and erosion, absorb carbon dioxide, cool urban heat islands and filter air pollutants. They also provide unique habitats for animals.

And it’s not just infrastructure that’s changing. Councils across the world, including some in Melbourne and Sydney, have hired chief heat or resilient officers who are in charge of ensuring appropriate plans are in place for hot days, or future proofing cities. But most of Australia lags. And without adequate heat mitigation and adaptation plans, Sydney’s residents will also be exposed to greater heat-related risks.

Between 2006 and 2017, more than 2 per cent of all deaths in Australia were heat-related. And sometimes plans alone are not enough.

In Europe, which has some strong heat mitigation initiatives, 61,000 people died in last year’s summer heat waves. This number will most likely worsen unless there is systemic change, experts say.

Professor Andy Marks, executive director of the centre for western Sydney at Western Sydney University, said Australians have been failed by a lack of determined co-ordination by all levels of government.

“Local councils are on the hook for this but they are not resourced to deal with it themselves, and they are beholden to regulations set by state governments,” he said.

Marks pointed to the example of former planning minister Rob Stokes’ attempts to ban the use of dark roofs on new developments, which contribute to the urban heat island effect.

“It was overturned the moment he was gone because the developers whined. In Sydney’s wealthier east and north, children get shade in a park,” Marks said.

Public health physician and a counsellor at the Climate Council Dr Kate Charlesworth said urban heat also exposed geographic inequity, with those in social and affordable housing more at risk than those living in beachside suburbs.

While escaping the heat and heading to libraries, shopping centres or heat refuges are solutions, it can be tricky for those living far away or with limited resources to access cool spaces.

“Heat is a silent killer,” she said. “There are a lot of people at great risk.”

Many of Sydney’s record heat temperatures have been recorded in the past five years. The hottest day was recorded in Penrith in 2020 when the temperature almost hit 50 degrees. Penrith resident Ben Abraham, said he still remembers that day for the baking heat that radiated off the ground.

“We were just lucky to have a house solar and good air-con. I was just so afraid for all of the animals and people outside. It was like being on another planet,” he said.

Abraham recently got some chickens, but he worries about what he’ll do with them on future hot days. His current plan is to bring them inside to keep them cool.

He said Penrith, like many western Sydney suburbs, can be very hot in summer but thinks poor tree cover and the widening of roads has done little to mitigate the heat.

What are better solutions?

Emma Bacon, the founder of Sweltering Cities, an organisation that works directly with communities in the hottest suburbs to campaign and advocate for more liveable, equitable and sustainable cities, said that, despite councils taking the initiative, state and federal governments were lagging.

“We need more green cover in cities, we need to make sure everything we are building is safe for the future and we need to prepare the health system effectively,” she said.

Bacon is among many people and groups that have signed up to the Greater Sydney Heat Taskforce, led by the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils. The group will meet next week to discuss how to build better resilience to the heat, and comprises 33 councils, various local health districts, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Australian Medical Association and others.

Among them will be Sydney’s chief resilience officer Beck Dawson. She said the taskforce was the first time co-ordinated collaboration had been taken between so many agencies, businesses and community groups. It offers a unique opportunity to address the problems, the best solutions and the structures in place to better prepare the city.

“What we had before is not the same as what’s to come. As a community, we need to heed that advice,” she said. But Dawson is optimistic that Sydney will be able to prepare for the heat with ample education and greater collaboration between agencies. It’s all about doing it as soon as possible.

That includes shifting how we think about heatwaves: they’re not just a few hot days. Pfautsch said a solution could be to create an agency that oversees heat and its impacts, as there is with other natural disasters. This approach, he said, could help with how communities and governments respond more appropriately.

Professor Ollie Jay, director of the Heat and Health Research Incubator at the University of Sydney, hopes his new heat rating scale will help educate people that hot weather isn’t just ... hot: it can also be dangerous.

The heat scale will provide evidence-based and personal information about how best to cope with different heat scenarios, such as what to do on a 30-degree day with low humidity versus what to do on a 48-degree day with high humidity. This could include information such as when is the best time to use a fan and how much water you need to drink.

“We have heatwaves coming this summer,” he said. “People underestimate their own heat vulnerability.”

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