Financing heat resilience

This report explores how governments can finance heat resilience through risk-informed investments, innovative financing mechanisms, and resilient infrastructure to protect lives, livelihoods, and economies from rising extreme heat risks. Extreme heat is rapidly becoming one of the deadliest and most economically disruptive climate hazards worldwide. Jointly developed by UNDRR and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of India, with technical support from the Centre for Disaster Protection (CDP), this report makes the case for shifting from reactive disaster response to proactive, risk-informed investment in heat resilience.

The report identifies priority investment areas spanning heat risk governance, early warning systems, resilient infrastructure, sustainable cooling, worker protection, and social safety nets. It provides policymakers with a practical financing framework that combines public budgets, sovereign borrowing, concessional finance, private capital, and innovative instruments such as contingency financing and parametric insurance. Drawing on case studies from Ahmedabad, Medellín, Paris, and Singapore, the report demonstrates how governments and cities are using layered financing approaches to protect vulnerable populations, strengthen urban systems, reduce economic losses, and build long-term resilience to escalating heat risks.