Half a million Toronto residents sweltering in apartments with no A/C in summer heat.
It also notes that urban centres face the greatest risk because of the “urban heat island” effect, with surface daytime temperatures being 10 to 15 C hotter in certain urban areas where heat is retained in built-up regions, while nighttime temperatures can be up to 12 C hotter than in surrounding rural areas.
There are a host of ways that cities like Toronto can mitigate the impacts of and adapt to extreme heat, said Feltmate. “I believe under the conditions of climate change, we should look at access to readily available cooling devices as a human right,” he said. “Part of the City of Toronto’s long-term strategy for dealing with extreme heat events ... is around the improvement of the City’s older apartment stock that does not have air conditioning in units, mostly rental units housing approximately 500,000,” it said.