Today, WRI joined, as a partner, the Beat the Heat (Mutirão contra o Calor Extremo) initiative, a new effort launched at COP30 led by the COP30 Presidency and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)’s Cool Coalition.

Beat the Heat helps accelerate the implementation of local solutions to mitigate extreme heat, which contributes to more than 500,000 deaths a year. It also aims to advance sustainable cooling mechanisms through new technical assistance and financing pathways. The initiative invites countries, cities and regions to join a collective effort to turn UNEP’s Global Cooling Pledge into meaningful local action and operationalize the EPIC Facility, the pledge’s key implementation mechanism.

WRI will serve as a core analytical and technical assistance partner for Beat the Heat, lending its urban analytics and capacity-building expertise to support local action. 

Through this initiative, partners have committed to supporting cities in implementing solutions using a dual approach: enabling direct access to funding for on-the-ground implementation and providing technical assistance through a suite of technical partners. New commitments at COP30 bring the number of endorsers of Beat the Heat to over 185 cities as well as 83 partner organizations.

“Heat is the people’s agenda,” said Stientje van Veldhoven, WRI’s Vice President and Regional Director for Europe, at the Beat the Heat launch event in Belém. “Cities are key to protecting people against heat. We need better data so we can invest at speed and scale.”

Building Knowledge and Capacity for Cooler Cities

WRI’s partnership on Beat the Heat builds on its extensive experience working with cities on several initiatives that support urban heat mitigation.

One of these initiatives is the Cool Cities Lab, a data platform that enables detailed analysis of local heat risk and cooling solutions. Slated to launch in March 2026, the platform will allow cities to explore fine-grain metrics, identify the neighborhoods most vulnerable to rising temperatures, and tailor action plans to effectively reduce heat risks.

The Cool Cities Lab also enables cities to model the potential heat-reduction impact of a range of local solutions, from street trees to cool roofs and shade structures. By exploring the cooling potential of different interventions, individually or in combination, cities can develop data-informed intervention plans that deliver meaningful cooling benefits. 

Through the Cool Cities Lab, WRI will provide data and analysis to cities participating in Beat the Heat.

Supporting this effort is Data for Cool Cities, through which WRI works with urban decision-makers to accelerate the adoption of cooling measures. This initiative equips cities with the data and tools needed to plan, fund, deploy and track solutions. Data for Cool Cities supports cities in three essential ways: by providing data to fill critical information gaps; building data analysis applications that create actionable insights; and scaling solutions through a global community of practice. To date, WRI has worked as a key technical support and implementation partner with more than 30 cities in 12 countries aiming to build their resilience to extreme heat.

Another initiative, the Urban Heat Solutions Accelerator, provides capacity building on developing urban cooling projects currently being implemented to support five Brazilian cities. By focusing on building cities’ long-term capacity to develop heat-resilience projects and establishing reliable financing mechanisms to support implementation, the Accelerator offers the potential to produce lessons and best practices that can strengthen the global Beat the Heat initiative. 

WRI and Drexel University’s Climate Change and Urban Health in Latin America Project (SALURBAL) are also conducting research on how heat, in combination with social factors and multiple aspects of the built environment, influences health-related impacts in neighborhoods in Belo Horizonte and Campinas, Brazil. Through the Heat and Health in Brazilian Cities project, WRI is working with community members and policymakers in both cities to guide research and  support the design and implementation of heat adaptation measures that safeguard health and promote equity. 

Speeding Up Action for Heat-Resilient Cities

With climate change intensifying and increasingly threatening lives and livelihoods, now is the time for cities to take meaningful action on heat. WRI Ross Center is proud to join the coalition of partners behind Beat the Heat and contribute to the technical expertise needed to accelerate the implementation of effective heat solutions in more cities. 

Interested in joining the effort to Beat the Heat? Register here.

Want to learn more about Cool Cities Lab? Sign up for updates.