Heat doesn't affect everyone equally: accessible solutions like climate shelters are needed. Bologna has activated fifteen of them in libraries, museums and public spaces.
Summer has only just begun, yet in many Italian cities thermometers have already far exceeded seasonal averages, with highs above 35 degrees Celsius (°C) for several consecutive days in many urban centres. Bologna has emerged as one of the hottest cities and has chosen to respond with concrete action: the activation of fifteen "climate shelters" in landmark public spaces – libraries, museums, neighbourhood centres and green areas – opening their doors to anyone seeking relief from the heat.
This is not merely an emergency measure, then, but a signal of collective care that takes into account the needs of the entire population, including those people who cannot choose where and how to protect themselves from scorching temperatures.
According to meteorological data, June 2025 recorded peaks well above seasonal averages across numerous areas of the country. But one figure, more than any other, encapsulates the scale of the transformation underway: in the Alps, the zero-degree isotherm – the altitude at which temperature equals or falls below 0°C – recently surpassed 5,300 metres, approaching the all-time record of 5,400.
This phenomenon highlights the growing fragility and stress of Alpine glaciers, and symbolically illustrates how rising temperatures are claiming ever greater expanses of territory, from mountain peaks to our cities. These are no longer isolated spikes, but a structural change reshaping our environment and altering the way we inhabit urban space.
In this context, cities find themselves on the front line: they are among the places most exposed to the effects of warming and, at the same time, can become laboratories for testing concrete solutions. Bologna has grasped this reality and, in response, has chosen to activate its first fifteen climate shelters: public spaces that offer protection during the hottest periods, without any economic or social distinction.
At the heart of the city, landmark venues such as the Salaborsa and Archiginnasio municipal libraries, the modern art museum MAMbo, and the Giardini Margherita are thus transformed into spaces of welcome and protection from the heat. It is a gesture that goes beyond emergency response and acknowledges a fundamental principle: the right to live in safe climatic conditions must be guaranteed to everyone.
The experience of Bologna is part of a growing movement that recognises how shifting temperatures are not only an environmental issue, but also one of social inequality – as the case of Madrid clearly illustrates, where heatwaves deepen already existing social fractures.
According to a study by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, the neighbourhoods with the lowest incomes are also those recording the greatest health impact during periods of intense heat: "A heatwave is not the same thing when you are forced to share a room with three other people and no air conditioning, compared to someone living in a villa with a swimming pool and air conditioning," Julio Díaz Jiménez, a professor and member of the research group that conducted the study, explained to the Guardian.
These are not, therefore, individual perceptions, but the direct consequences of housing poverty and inadequate infrastructure, such as the lack of public green space, which amplifies the urban heat island effect and turns heat into a public health issue.
This is why the terms summer energy poverty and cooling poverty are increasingly heard: cooling poverty is a form of vulnerability that manifests during the summer months, sitting alongside the far better-known hardship linked to winter heating costs. The inequality at this point is clear: those who have contributed least to global carbon dioxide emissions are often the very same people who bear the sharpest effects of climate warming.
Faced with these challenges, various cities are experimenting with solutions to reduce impacts on the hottest days of the year and improve urban liveability, both in Italy and internationally.
In the United States, New York has activated hundreds of cooling centers, air-conditioned public spaces available on peak-heat days, supported by information campaigns and targeted financial assistance for the urban communities most exposed to extreme weather events.
In France, the Métropole de Lyon has created an interactive map highlighting hundreds of "cool places" across the city, including air-conditioned indoor spaces and shaded parks. The tool also allows users to plan entire routes through the city, minimising exposure to heat and avoiding urban heat islands.
Barcelona has followed a similar path, building since 2019 a network of over three hundred and fifty climate shelters, spanning civic centres, schools, museums, markets, parks and drinking fountains. The city council ensures that 98 per cent of the population has a climate shelter within a ten-minute walk and 68 per cent within five, with environments maintained at around twenty-six degrees Celsius, seating and fresh water, all free of charge.
In Italy, beyond Bologna, other cities are adopting similar measures.
In Turin, the 2025 summer plan includes extended opening hours for air-conditioned community meeting centres.
Milan has launched a pilot project providing for the opening of libraries and civic centres as cooled rest areas on the hottest days.
Rome offers free entry to municipal swimming pools, complementing the initiative with dedicated transport for elderly people and those with reduced mobility.
These increasingly widespread measures demonstrate that urban adaptation to heat is no longer a bonus, but a genuine social necessity.
Global warming is not a distant forecast: it is a reality that already affects millions of people today. According to a study published in Nature Sustainability, approximately 60 million people currently live in areas where the mean annual temperature exceeds twenty-nine degrees Celsius – well above the threshold that scientists consider the human climatic niche, that is, the range of environmental conditions that has historically allowed human beings to live and thrive.
Researchers warn that this niche is shrinking rapidly and that if emissions are not drastically reduced, between 22 and 39 per cent of the world's population – that is, between 2 and 3.7 billion people – will live in areas with climatic conditions incompatible with health and safety.
For this reason, climate shelters represent far more than a temporary intervention: they are a concrete signal of inclusion and social justice. Making cities more accessible, greener and more resilient means not only mitigating the impact of extreme temperatures, but building more equitable urban spaces, where wellbeing does not depend on one's financial means.
Bologna, with this initiative, is charting a course that could become a replicable model: protecting oneself from the effects of heat cannot be a privilege for the few, but must become a universal right. Because today climate change is measured not only in retreating glaciers, but also in the scorching pavements of our cities.