Cape Town becomes the first South African city to have a Chief Heat Officer. The city is ready to drive heat awareness communication and interventions as Cape Town becomes hotter, with more extreme heat-related events unfolding as the climate changes.
Africans are used to hot temperatures, they often minimise the dangers of extreme heat events, especially as it pertains to the most vulnerable in the city and outdoor workers.
Cape Town’s first Chief Heat Officer – Albert Ferreira, who is also the City’s Manager for Resilience and Climate Change has been selected to champion awareness around heat and extreme heat events that are expected to increase in frequency due to climate change.
In these hottest months, there are many areas in Cape Town that experience temperatures hotter than 35°C and being heat smart is becoming increasingly important.
The City of Cape Town introduced its first Beat the Heat programme during summer 2024 focusing on vulnerable communities located in regions often experiencing summer temperatures hotter than 35° C such as Atlantis, Mamre, Dunoon, Joe Slovo and Sir Lowry’s Pass Village.
However, the highest temperature recorded for 2024 was 44.6° C at the Royal Yacht Club in the Foreshore area, which is the current highest temperature on record for Cape Town.
Beat-the-Heat programme has been developed as part of the City’s Heat Action Plan and it is being implemented by a number of departments including Risk and Resilience, Environmental Management and Disaster Risk Management.
Ferreira said that the Climate Change Action Plan of the city addresses various climate hazards including droughts, fire, flooding, surges, storms and heat waves facing the city.
They are specifically focussing on extreme heat as a growing public health and urban planning challenge that highlights the need to treat it with the same urgency as other climate hazards.
The City became a member of the international City Champions for Heat Action (CCHA) initiative in 2024 to amplify awareness of Cape Town’s heat risks and advance the City’s heat response work with global partners. Cape Town is one of three African cities to join the CCHA, with full membership to date consisting of Freetown, Kisumu County, Athens, Melbourne, Dhaka North, Monterrey, Santiago and Miami-Dade County.
Executive Director for Future Planning and Resilience – Gareth Morgan said that Albert’s appointment comes as part of this international membership, and he joined other Chief Heat Officers located across the world.
They aim to unify their city governments’ responses to extreme heat through internal activism, accelerating existing heat protection efforts and initiating new work to reduce the risks and impacts of extreme heat especially for heat-vulnerable communities in their cities.