Urban Policies and Measures to Asdapt to Excessive Heat: Madrid and London

The motivation for this paper is the recent, warrying increase in climate change denial, discouraging decisive action to accelerate both adaptation and mitigation measures, while dramatic climate change manifestations are on the increase. Surprisingly, countries that initially aligned themselves with the Paris Agreement are joining this trend, urging a reduction in the measures proposed to achieve net zero CO2 emissions, alleging a loss of competitiveness in the global market.Thesefacts are provoking reactions byglobal organisations, including COP30, as well as among politicians, academics and the media about how to stem this potential reversal. Global warming is an all embracing phenomenon affecting all parts of the planet, and although its effects differ between countries and cities, they arose a wide range of responses, some tried and tested, others experimental and leading to innovation, at both governmental and city levels. This paper aims to identify these place-biased policies and practices whilelooking for possible commonalities of more general applicability, using as case study two cities situated in different climatic regions: Madrid, in a transition zone between the semi-arid temperate-cold climate and the mediterranean climate, and London, in a temperate maritime climate. In both cases, climate change is generating new phenomena for which cities are not adapted. Madrid, with short springs and autumns, harsh winters and hot summers, attributes priority to measure against extreme heat which is increasing year on year. London with more even four seasons, undergoes increasing fluctuating temperatures, heavy rain falls, and high winds and storms from both the Atlantic and the Arctic, but its measures dealt with air pollution due to traffic, its key environmental problem. The focus of the paper is on concrete measuresto find possible common points of more general application, how they are being incorporated at national level in legislation and regulations, and how they are applied and tested in practice, at city level, city-wide, as well as in neighbourhoods and for buildings.