News - Extreme Heat
The Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University convened more than 100 researchers, policymakers and corporate and community leaders in June to identify ways to make communities more heat resilient. A new Nicholas Institute report captures insights shared during conversations around three core themes at the inaugural HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit
Nineteen individuals and teams were recognized Thursday with Climate Commitment Leadership Awards at the annual Duke Climate Commitment Celebration event. Award recipients included Nicholas Institute experts Kay Jowers, Lydia Olander, Ashley Ward and Katie Warnell.
Ashley Ward joins 97.9 The Hill’s "News on the Hill" program every other Thursday to comment on the latest climate news.
Speaking to WUNC for its Scorched Workers series, Jordan Clark, senior policy associate at the Duke Heat Policy Innovation Hub, pointed to local research that will help groups in North Carolina provide appropriate resources to outdoor workers and other communities vulnerable to extreme heat. But first, Clark said it's vital for people to take heat seriously. "It's an invisible threat you can't see," he said.
According to Copernicus, the EU agency that tracks global warming, extreme heat in 2024 will likely break records. “We’re talking about ecosystem change on a global scale that’s going to affect all of us,” Ashley Ward, director of the Duke Heat Policy Innovation Hub, told The New York Times. “Our energy systems, built environment, and medical services were never built with this type of temperature regime in mind.”
Extreme heat contributed to more U.S. deaths in 2023 than any other year in the last two decades. Ashley Ward, director of Duke's Heat Policy Innovation Hub, says there is no standardized way to report these deaths. “There needs to be guidance and standards developed for how we determine heat is a contributor,” she told USA Today.
The 2024 Duke Alumni Engagement and Development Impact Report highlights the launch of "Cooling Communities: Strategic Partnerships for Energy Equity in the Carolinas." This new project is led by experts at the Nicholas Institute and Duke Divinity School, and nonprofit groups N.C. Interfaith Power & Light, N.C. Council of Churches, and S.C. Interfaith Power & Light, alongside collaborators at Duke Energy.
Increasing temperatures, rising energy costs and systemic social disparity combine to put 16 percent of Americans in energy poverty. Ashley Ward, director of Duke's Heat Policy Innovation Hub, defined energy poverty for CBS News as "the layering of burdens without a means, at the individual level, to combat those burdens."
Increasing summer temperatures in North Carolina and around the world are a slow-moving disaster that may go unheeded until they culminate in a heat crisis. "You can't look out your window and say it's an extreme heat day like you can with a hurricane, tornado or bad storm," Jordan Clark, senior policy associate at Duke's Heat Policy Innovation Hub, told the Wilmington StarNews. "It's very subtle and somewhat invisible, but incredibly impactful."
As high temperature records are set and broken again, cities are looking into establishing renters’ rights to cooling equipment. The major challenge rental cooling standards proponents need to overcome, is the public perception that air conditioning is a luxury, not a necessity, Ashley Ward, director of Duke University’s Heat Policy Innovation Hub, told Smart Cities Dive. “What we’re learning is we have to develop policies specific to the issue of heat,” Ward said.