Low-income, racialized neighbourhoods hit harder by extreme heat, scientists say

Environmental racism in Canada Ingrid Waldron joins CTV to talk about environmental racism in Canada.

TORONTO — Neighbourhoods with racialized and lower-income families suffer more from extreme heat in Canadian cities, climate scientists say, echoing new U.S. research.

Low-income neighborhoods and communities with higher Black, Hispanic and Asian populations experience significantly more urban heat than wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods, according to researchers from the University of California San Diego.

Disproportionate heat exposure is “due to more built-up neighborhoods, less vegetation, and – to a lesser extent – higher population density,” Susanne Benz, the first author and postdoctoral fellow at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, said in a press release.

Her team used satellite-data and census data to figure out inequalities in a vast majority of populous U.S. counties.

In Canada, studies found populations more at risk for heat-related illness include Indigenous people, newcomers, and lower-income people. Extreme heat has been linked to a host of issues, such as: premature births; lower test scores; decreases in productivity; and, increased risk of heatstroke among children and the elderly.

“It's like a cascade kind of effect at this time this year,” Altaf Arain, director of the McMaster Centre for Climate Change, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. He wasn’t involved in the study but said “there are a lot of deaths for a lot of people who don’t have the ability to cool down.”

“In a lot of North American cities, there are a lot of minority communities in the poorer neighborhoods, so they are exposed to more heat and … [they often] live in housing where there’s no air conditioning,” said Arain, also a professor at McMaster University’s School of Earth, Environment and Society.

“It is very well established that dense urban areas are warmer as compared to the suburbs… three to four degrees higher,” he said, noting the Government of Canada even has resources and other materials to help public health officials reduce these so-called “heat islands,” where temperatures are disproportionately higher.

Other studies in the U.S. note the effects of extreme heat in cities fall along racial lines, or make heat waves even worse. The latest U.S. findings are especially troubling given how half of the world's population now lives in urban areas, with cities across the world facing the same trend of having hotter heat surface temperatures.

'WHO CAN DO RENOVATIONS FOR THEIR HOMES?'

Luna Khirfan, a professor at University of Waterloo’s School of Planning, said urban planners and architects could mitigate urban heat effects by focusing on passive design elements, such as window placement and roofs with garden, trees or other plant life.

“The presence of green spaces, green covers, water features… [can mean] an almost 10-degrees-Celsius difference in temperature,” said Khirfan, whose research touches on community climate change adaptation and the need for increased water spaces and green spaces.

Khirfan’s work is currently focused on racialized and lower-income communities in Toronto being disproportionately hit by flooding, and ways homeowners can mitigate climate-change effects.

“But who can do renovations for their homes?” Khirfan said, explaining that a person’s income directly impacts whether they’re able to guard against problems such as flooding or extreme heat.

EXTREME HEAT 'COMPOUNDING FACTOR OF INEQUALITY'

Montreal researcher Joanna Eyquem, who examines extreme heat, agrees. She said shoring up more green spaces could increase property values, and therefore plans must ensure they don’t inadvertently price out lower-income and racialized people.

“I really see extreme heat as a compounding factor of inequality,” said Eyquem, managing director of climate-resilient infrastructure at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation in Waterloo.

She notes, while Canada’s racial makeup of Black, Indigenous and racialized people differs from the U.S., there is systemic racial inequality when it comes to disproportionate health outcomes, overrepresentation in jobs outside, and disproportionate exposure to air pollution in cities such as Hamilton, Ont.

Eyquem also noted Canada First Nations, Métis and Inuit populations live in areas in northern Canada, where temperatures are rising as much as three times as much as the rest of the world.

The issue of mitigating extreme heat is so urgent her team is currently putting together a national guidance on practical actions that can be taken.