\n<\/p>\n
It has been a summer of heatwaves in western Europe, with record highs of 46C (115F) in Spain and Portugal.<\/p>\n
An estimated 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities in June, according to a rapid scientific analysis, with two-thirds of those deaths linked to climate breakdown, which has made heatwaves more severe.<\/p>\n
While green spaces can help mitigate extreme heat, a recent study shows that urban green spaces are not distributed equitably.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Castlefield viaduct in Manchester, an elevated linear park similar to the New York High Line.<\/span> Photograph: Mark Waugh\/Alamy<\/p>\n Nearly 80% of the population of western Europe live in urban areas, and the urban heat island effect turns those cities into pressure cookers during a heatwave. Street trees, parks and green roofs can significantly lower temperatures, and many cities are planting more trees and creating green spaces.<\/p>\n Weiqi Zhou, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and colleagues mapped green space creation and compared this with levels of social deprivation in two megacities: Beijing and New York City.<\/p>\n Their results, published in Earth\u2019s Future, show green space is more likely to be added in high-income areas, exacerbating social vulnerability.<\/p>\n They conclude that cities should prioritise the most vulnerable neighbourhoods for urban greening and not just plant trees where it is easy to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It has been a summer of heatwaves in western Europe, with record highs of 46C (115F) in Spain and Portugal. An estimated 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities in June, according to a rapid scientific analysis, with two-thirds of those deaths linked to climate breakdown, which has made heatwaves more severe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[3874,1083,2280,728,895,1101,2211,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-14468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-close","10":"tag-gap","11":"tag-green","12":"tag-soar","13":"tag-space","14":"tag-temperatures","15":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}