Cases, Environment and Climate Change

The Metropolitan Network of Climate Shelters (XMRC) was born in 2021 and groups municipal facilities, such as libraries, civic centers, schools, and public spaces, such as large parks, that can provide thermal comfort conditions during the summer period and in episodes of extreme temperatures . It serves to provide citizens such as elderly, children and people with low incomes that live at risk, and especially the population most vulnerable to extreme heat, suitable spaces indoor and outdoor to recover from the thermal stress caused by high temperatures on the human body and give them security and rest coexisting with other users located at a distance of 10-minute walk from their homes in the metropolitan municipalities. As an example we have, parks, libraries or civic centers.

The XMRC is a voluntary grouping, without its own legal personality, formed by the AMB and all those local bodies in its territorial area that are holders of a space that has been considered a climate refuge (RC) and that adhere to it through the Established protocol.

The purpose of the XMRC is to become a space for exchange and shared learning that promotes and consolidates the work of both the AMB and the local bodies, offering the climate shelter service to citizens.

A climate shelter (RC) is an accessible indoor or outdoor space that, during extreme climatic episodes, provides thermal comfort, rest and safety to the population. They are not equipment solely intended for this purpose, since they make their usual uses and functions compatible with the climatic shelter service during episodes of extreme temperatures.

Climate shelters do not necessarily have to be air-conditioned, but they do have to guarantee a comfortable temperature. In outdoor spaces, this temperature can be reached through natural methods, such as water points or a high presence of vegetation that helps thermoregulate the temperature, giving a cooler and more comforting atmosphere.

Tags: Climate change, nature-based solutions, climate shelters, shadow, summer, vulnerable population

Challenges addressed

The metropolitan area of Barcelona is a territory clearly affected by the consequences of climate change, just like most of the countries of the Mediterranean basin. These effects are, for example, the increase in temperature, the reduction of rain and the increase in periods of drought, floods and extreme temperatures, which will worsen in the coming years in a more or less intense way. The measures we take to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases will help reduce the expected effects regarding the intensity of heat waves, which is a climate impact that will occur and we must be prepared to face it through adaptation measures. to climate change, such as climate shelters in order to guarantee the least impact on citizens.

Excessive and sustained heat will have direct effects on people’s health, as it will lead to an increase in mortality and morbidity in the population, in particular the most vulnerable groups such as the elderly, infants, people with chronic pathologies or those who live in more unfavorable social conditions. This increase in heat will also have an impact on the quality of public space in urban environments and the use that is made of it, as well as an increase in the demand for cooling in homes to achieve suitable living conditions.

Climate shelters, therefore, are one of the strategies available in the metropolis of Barcelona to try to alleviate the negative effects that heat waves have on people.

Main objectives

– Prioritize people vulnerable to extreme temperatures such as the elderly, infants, chronically ill, etc.

– The XMRC constitutes a corrective adaptation action to climate change that particularly attends to the most climatically vulnerable social groups, alleviating the intensification of inequalities that these groups suffer, thus contributing to climate justice.

– Reduce the exposure of disadvantaged groups to the adverse effects of climate change; and reduce their sensitivity to damage caused and increase in their ability to cope with and recover from damage suffered.

– Reduce the temperature, which, thanks to green spaces with moderate vegetation, can be reduced by up to 6.5 degrees, compared to areas without vegetation.

– The goal of the XMRC is that anyone resident in the metropolitan area of Barcelona has one of these shelters less than 10 minutes’ walk from their home.

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