Extreme heat is not only making cities less liveable; it is also reshaping who can afford to live where. The highest levels of vulnerability to climate gentrification are no longer found in the urban core, but in the metropolitan periphery. To help anticipate this process, researchers at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) have developed the first metropolitan climate and housing vulnerability index for Barcelona, with data that can be explored street by street across 36 municipalities.

The 2025 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change reveals the relationship between climate change and food insecurity: in 2023, an additional 2.7 million people across 26 SIDS experienced moderate or severe food insecurity due to the higher frequency of heatwaves and droughts. “The report makes it very clear, climate change is affecting health, food security, labour force, and the economies of SIDS more than in other parts of the world,” says CMCC researcher and co-author of the report Shouro Dasgupta. “What is more, these burdens are borne by nations responsible for less than 1% of the emissions that cause them.”