Bridging the Heat Divide: Global Forum Advances South-South Dialogue to Spark Action
NRDC’s second-annual Global Heat & Cooling Forum in New Delhi will convene global experts to shape an agenda for keeping people cooler as global temperatures rise.
As global temperatures continue to climb, extreme heat is no longer a distant threat—it is a present-day crisis that increasingly threatens human health, erodes labor productivity, and undermines progress toward critical development goals. But while the whole planet is warming, heat impacts are experienced unevenly, especially across the Global South.
In the Global South, extreme heat is exposing a deeper truth: a widening divide in preparedness. This gap isn’t just about discomfort and inconvenience; it’s a fundamental and growing disparity in climate adaptation that leaves the most vulnerable—low-income communities, the elderly, and outdoor workers—at increasing risk of health and economic harm.
To bridge this divide, we need to think beyond reactive, short-term responses toward a systemic approach that integrates and scales innovative heat adaptation strategies with more accessible, affordable, and efficient climate-friendly cooling solutions. That is why NRDC is hosting our second-annual Global Heat & Cooling Forum (GHCF) this month in New Delhi.
Living in extreme heat is more than just a physical discomfort—it can impact your livelihood and overall health and well-being. NRDC’s director of cooling and climate resilience, Prima Madan, talks about how India is adapting to rising temperatures and what the rest of the world can learn from them.
Renewed focus on implementation
When NRDC launched the inaugural GHCF in 2025, our goal was to ignite a coordinated international platform that could unify the dialogue around heat preparedness and cooling access. Last year’s forum succeeded in bringing together a powerhouse of regional policymakers, researchers, and civil society leaders to underscore how integrated solutions can secure and sustain longer-term resilience, with a focus on the Indian context and pathways for policy strengthening.
This year’s event marks a pivotal shift. We are moving beyond the “what” and the “why” of heat risks and cooling technology gaps to dive deeper into the “how.” This year’s GHCF is laser-focused on dialogues that will advance on-the-ground implementation. We aren’t just talking about ideas; we are surfacing breakthrough implementation pathways that can be scaled across cities and nations. India’s National Disaster Management Authority, the Department of Science & Technology, and the global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) are organizing the forum this year with us.
Last year’s GHCF underscored how an integrated approach can streamline action to build resilience to extreme heat and provide wider access to sustainable cooling simultaneously. Such heat-cooling solutions can strengthen health, equity, and economic development at local, state, and national levels. GHCF 2026 is designed to advance this momentum, as experts provide high-level recommendations that can inform actionable policy solutions, implementation models, and partnerships that protect people on the ground.
Deep conversations on solutions that scale
Building on the foundation laid last year, the GHCF 2026 agenda features six thematic sessions spanning occupational health, adaptation governance, infrastructure, building regulations, community‑ and equity‑centered approaches, and South-South collaboration, particularly India and Africa.
Each session is co-curated with expert anchor partners: the Sustainable Solutions for Africa (SSA) , SouthSouthNorth (SSN), the Global Heat Health Information Network, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Harvard University, Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, University of Oxford, Ashok B Lall, Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy, Council on Energy, Environment and Water, Prayas (Energy Group), and Climate Trends. By convening key actors in each of these domains—ranging from academic institutions to on-the-ground community practitioners—this year’s GHCF facilitates the kind of focused dialogue that’s necessary to identify critical gaps and priorities to move the solutions forward meaningfully.
South-South synergy: Sharing lessons from India and Africa
Addressing the global heat divide effectively will require more coordinated and iterative forms of collaboration and learning. One of the most exciting pillars of GHCF 2026 is our expanded focus on South-South cooperation. Many of the technical and policy challenges faced by countries in South Asia and Africa share common themes, and there is immense power in cross-dialogue and knowledge sharing between these regions. A dedicated thematic session, delivered in partnership with SEforALL, SSN, and SSA will specifically examine heat preparedness and cooling solution intervention insights from Indian and African contexts. By fostering this multi-sectoral collaboration, GHCF 2026 will highlight locally led approaches and case studies that can resonate and scale across the Global South through new communities of practice.
Centering the unheard: Solutions rooted in lived experience
Narrowing the divide in heat preparedness requires a look beyond global temperature projections and health risk statistics and a focus that is deliberately on those on the frontlines of the climate crisis: informal and gig workers, women, and children. This year’s GHCF will provide a platform to surface the unique perspectives of these heat-sensitive populations. We are prioritizing dialogues that center their voices, recognizing that a delivery rider navigating intense heat or a mother managing a household in an urban slum each has a story to tell that is too often invisible in science, the media, and policymaking. Our goal is to move from designing solutions for these communities to designing with them, ensuring that the next generation of heat-health interventions is built upon the lived realities, priorities, and resilience strategies of those who feel the heat most acutely.
Heat-resilient buildings and infrastructure
This year, we are also exploring the critical but sometimes overlooked dimension of infrastructure resilience. Extreme heat doesn’t just affect human biology; it threatens the physical systems that keep our society running. It poses a systemic risk to the reliability of our power grids and safety of our buildings. In partnership with the CDRI, GHCF 2026 will feature a new thematic session that will center on ways to ensure that the infrastructure of the future is built to withstand the climate of the future.
Moving global action forward
The upcoming GHCF provides a venue for engagement on a pressing and complex topic. As extreme heat intensifies, risks to society are multiplying. By advancing coordinated and inclusive action on tested solutions, we can ensure that the most heat-vulnerable communities are not left behind but are instead protected by resilient infrastructure and equitable cooling solutions.
For more details, visit the GHCF website here.
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