Extreme Heat and Inequity: Assessing Cooling Poverty, Exposure, and Root Causes

Climate change and resulting rising extreme heat are projected to triple the demand for cooling by 2050. Within this context, the lack of access to affordable cooling, broadly referred to as cooling poverty, presents a significant yet holistically under-explored issue. Furthermore, with the lack of approaches that tackle the different dimensions of cooling poverty, it has become challenging to identify critical hotspots and the degree of vulnerability at a granular level.

This research aims to address a fundamental question on cooling energy poverty across different scales: where do the cooling poverty hotspots exist, who are the most vulnerable, and why does such poverty persist?

The first part of answering this question will focus on identifying the global high-risk regions for cooling poverty in a 1.5- and 2-degree warming world. These regions will be identified by integrating and mapping projections of cooling degree days (CDDs) with population and GDP data, informed by shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). The data used, from climateprediction.net, is among the most granular available in terms of spatio-temporal detail.

The second part of the study will focus on identifying who are the most vulnerable and how can an index be derived from key factors that characterise cooling vulnerability. A comprehensive literature review will inform the dimensions of cooling poverty examined, which will be integrated into a novel Cooling Energy Poverty Index (CEPI). CEPI will then be applied to the high-risk regions to locate and characterise specific hotspots at a regional level.

The third and final part of the study progresses from previous macro-level quantitative approaches to a micro-level qualitative examination of the selected hotspots to study why do the most vulnerable experience cooling poverty, and how do prevalent strategies affect these vulnerabilities. This qualitative investigation will use both secondary data and primary data collected via surveys, workshops, and interviews to answer these questions.

Together, the research will make a positive impact to the world by developing an understanding that leads to identifying, characterizing, and mitigating cooling energy poverty, particularly in light of the multiple sustainable development goals that extreme heat threatens.

Leveraging the interdisciplinary expertise from the Oxford Martin School's Future of Cooling Programme and Smith School Enterprise and Environment, the project embodies EPSRC's commitment to collaborate in cross-disciplinary research.

The research aligns with the EPSRC focus areas, particularly with "end-use energy demand" and with its sub-themes of "heat research," "energy demand" and "'digital and information technologies." The project will make a significant and far-reaching contribution in these research themes through its holistic approach in assessing the cooling poverty by identifying high-risk regions, developing an index to measure vulnerability, and examining the underlying causes of cooling poverty.

In essence, this project not only addresses a vital aspect of sustainable cooling but also contributes significantly to understanding the dimensions of future energy demand in the context of climate change, aligning with EPSRC's strategic research priorities.