BEAT THE HEAT: ORGANIZING FOR SURVIVAL IN AN OVERHEATING PLANET

The Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. The last three years: 2023, 2024 and 2025 are the three hottest years ever recorded in human history – and it is only getting worse. 

Temperatures above 35°C/95°F are considered dangerous to human health. Yet, as this year’s report shows, workers and tenants are routinely being forced to live with and work in these temperatures without relief. Heat-related deaths of people older than 65 years increased by 167% last year, compared with the 1990s. Disasters associated with weather-related hazards have almost doubled compared to the previous 20 years.

Heat is the leading cause of weather-related death worldwide and it is low- and moderate-income earners who are most vulnerable. 

For tenants

Around the world, the climate change crisis is exacerbating the housing crisis that ACORN members live with everyday.

ACORN tenants are more likely to live in older, multi-family, or substandard rental units that lack modern insulation and energy-efficient cooling systems. Many homes were not built from the extreme heat that people are now experiencing. In urban centers dangerous “heat island” effects mean temperatures stay dangerously high longer and longer. Property owners are reluctant to take on extra costs to address these deficiencies and look to pass costs on to tenants.

In low-income and informal urban settlements, an overheating planet means catastrophe: UN-Habitat projects that climate-related hazards will destroy or render uninhabitable roughly 167 million homes globally by 2040, triggering mass displacement and forcing people into even more precarious, unmonitored housing arrangements. 

For workers 

The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that of the world’s workers (roughly 2.4 billion workers) are exposed to excessive heat annually. 

For workers who have to be outside – from hawkers to delivery people to municipal workers – heat stress can be deadly. As of 2024, 19,000 workers die of heat-related stress every year and 22.85 million suffer occupational injuries.

For workers affiliated with ACORN, extreme heat often means having to choose between enduring life-threatening heat or losing a job, as protections like “stop-work” heat thresholds, cooling breaks and even basic relief are rarely offered by employers or mandated by governments.

Natural disasters

Extreme heat and global heating make natural disasters more common – and more deadly. 

Low-and-moderate income families are often forced by zoning and economic factors to live in high-risk zones – and have the least means to protect themselves and their communities. ACORN members around the world are facing more and more natural disasters – everything from fire to tornadoes – and infrastructure that can’t keep up with the pace of climate change. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs points out that public adaptation investments are not only lacking but tend to flow to high-value real estate and commercial districts leaving lower-income communities unprotected and vulnerable.

In many countries, extreme heatwaves themselves are not treated as emergencies – the way other natural disasters are – even though they can be as lethal, especially for low- and moderate-income earners.

Around the planet, ACORN International affiliate members are feeling the heat, and organizing to protect themselves and their communities from a growing climate crisis We are calling on communities, organizations, local governments any anyone receiving this report to join us. Take action to #beattheheat. On July 15, join the International Day of Action. 

Find out more at acorninternational.org

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ACORN is Organizing:

The extreme heat hits gig delivery drivers in India especially hard. Drivers are forced to work in record heat without rest zones, paid heat breaks, or basic safety protocols. Yet the demands for delivery workers only grow more intense. 

Over the last year, workers with the ACORN-affiliated the Gig Workers Association have had organizing success – winning recognition of the extreme conditions they face on the job and, more importantly, some basic relief.

Delivery workers associated with online platforms work long hours without guaranteed rest zones, paid heat breaks, or basic heat safety protocols. For years, major online delivery platforms including Blinkit, Swiggy, Zomato, and Zepto built their entire brand around a promise of swift delivery – regardless of the dangers faced by delivery drivers. These dangers are compounded by extreme heat – as the temperature rises those who can afford to stay in cooled spaces are more likely to order. A survey conducted in collaboration with the Gig Workers Association found that delivery drivers routinely work 70 hours a week, a majority lack health insurance despite fatigue and joint pain, and 85% work in extreme heat.

But workers are organizing and advocating for their rights and safety – and are winning change. Over the last year, millions of gig workers have taken action – organizing multiple strikes that have shut down delivery platforms ability to deliver. Including, a strike over the New Year in which an estimated 200,000 workers refused to log on for their shifts. 

As a result, governments and employers are being forced to act. In the state of Bihar, Gig Workers Association and allies have won a breakthrough in gig economy regulation with new legislation designed to ensure workers access to compensation for injury, welfare benefits, maternity leave and registration of platforms. 

In another victory, arrangements for clean water, mobile charging, washrooms, and a series of rest pods are being provided at various commercial, market, and public places around the State for gig workers who need respite from oppressive heat.

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Across the United States, workers are increasingly exposed to dangerous heat as temperatures rise and extreme weather becomes more common. Outdoor workers, sanitation crews, public works employees, and other frontline workers often face long hours in extreme conditions, putting them at risk of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, lost income, and long-term health impacts. While some cities and states have adopted heat safety protections, enforcement remains inconsistent and many workers are still left vulnerable.

ACORN affiliates and allies are organizing to ensure that heat protections are not only adopted but enforced. In New Orleans, A Community Voice successfully won mandatory heat protections for city and contracted workers. The new law sets clear standards:

• Employers must provide 10-minute breaks every two hours when the heat index is 80–89°F.
• Employers must provide 15-minute breaks every two hours when the heat index is 90°F or above.
• Breaks must be in shaded or cooled spaces, not in direct sun.

United Labor Unions Local 100 in Arkansas is also fighting to ensure existing worker safety standards are properly implemented and monitored. Together, these campaigns are building stronger protections for workers on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

“In defiance of MAGA and mean-spirited policies that keep workers in the sun all day with no breaks, A Community Voice-ACORN met with City Councilmember Oliver Thomas to draw up worker rights protections in an ordinance,” 

Debra Campbell, Past President A Community Voice

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In Canada, tenants have found themselves on the front lines of climate change. Canada is warming at twice the global rate and rental units that were built 50 years ago are now dealing with extreme heat events that they were not designed for. Toronto ACORN’s 2026 “State of Repair” survey found the number of tenant members doubled – with over 60% stating that their apartment was too hot last summer, compared to 31.5% only three years ago. In British Columbia, where a record-breaking heat dome caused 619 heat-related deaths in 2021, ACORN members share these concerns. 65% of tenants surveyed by ACORN BC have experienced extreme heat in their apartments during summer.

In communities across Canada, ACORN members have been organizing and pushing government to set a maximum temperature of 26 degrees Celsius and making it the landlord’s legal responsibility to ensure it. In the last year, they have seen results: Municipal Council in New Westminster, BC has passed a maximum heat by-law, Councils in Toronto and Hamilton are now actively planning for their own by-laws. In Ottawa, Calgary and London, ON, Fredericton and Moncton ACORN members have forced this issue onto the political agenda – as well as winning targeted support for low-income seniors who face the greatest health risks in extreme heat events. 

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ACORN-affiliated members of Locataire Ensemble in France face similar challenges and have been organizing in French cities like Lyon, Marseille, and Grenoble. Last year, working with Territoire Zéro Logement Passoire (TeZeLoPa), they detailed the dangers facing tenants in Lyon and the failure of landlords to act with their report “Lyon, capitale des logements bouilloires ?” (“Lyon: Capital of Kettle Housing?). The report’s investigation of over 2,000 housing units in central Lyon found:

• 62% of windows lack effective external solar protection, a figure far worse than the national average.
• A quarter of all historic protections have been deliberately removed and never replaced, sacrificed to save on maintenance costs while tenants bear the health consequences. 
• 62% of buildings now housing tenants directly under poorly insulated roofs, creating some of the worst “oven” apartments in the city. 
• Official energy performance certificates that supposedly warn renters offer no protection whatsoever – leaving tenants with no legal recourse and no way to know the danger before they sign a lease. 

Tenant members are fighting back. In June, tenants at 13579 rue du Lac in Lyon marked the first day of summer by installing their own sunshades – in defiance of regulations forbidding them doing so. Once deployed, the sunshades not only regulated heat, they displayed a message visible from afar: “Climate Insecurity, My Right to Renovate, Article 1331-33…”. Article R1331-33 of the Public Health Code, is a rarely enforced section that is supposed to guarantee the right to a “functional and sufficient heating regulation system”

Tenants presented findings into a study of extreme heat they endure to their landlord. They then called on the local Deputy Mayors to admire their handywork – but more importantly to start enforcing the public health code.

« L’injustice climatique, c’est subir le réchauffement sans pouvoir s’en protéger, c’est ce qu’on subit dans la barre rue du Lac.  Aujourd’hui, on rénove nous-même malgré l’interdiction qui nous est faite ».» (“Climate injustice means enduring global warming without being able to protect oneself from it, which is what we’re experiencing…. Today, we’re fixing it ourselves.”)

Daphné Rozet, Locataires Ensemble Member

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides cash subsidies to landlords providing affordable housing. In exchange, those landlords are required to keep apartments in a state of repair – that includes cooling that actually works. ACORN members are currently organizing to push landlords to deliver on their responsibilities.

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In Edinburgh, ACORN-affiliate Living Rent, alongside the Fire Brigades Union, community groups, and elected officials organized to oppose the closure of Marionville Fire Station in Edinburgh. Campaigners argued that closure plans fail to account for thousands of new homes being built in the area and come at a time when fire services are already stretched.

Freedom of Information requests revealed that backup fire engines at nearby stations were unavailable more than 1,100 times in a single year, raising serious concerns about emergency response capacity during wildfires, heat-related emergencies, and other climate-driven events. The organizing forced the Fire and Rescue Service Board to back off plans for closure and organizing continues to ensure a commitment to refurbishing or rebuilding the station.

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In Kenya, global warming has triggered a “climate whiplash” of prolonged droughts followed by sudden, intense downpours. Nairobi has been identified as having one of the most intensifying climates in the world and has a growing wastewater crisis. For ACORN Kenya members organizing in Nairobi this a matter of public health.

The community’s neglected, poorly maintained sewer lines are caught in a destructive loop: dry spells harden blockages within the pipes, which are then violently ruptured and overwhelmed by heavy flash floods – leaving members dealing with overflowing waste and unhealthy living conditions. In the face of intimidation from landlords, community members are meeting and organizing to push government to address problems that have been ignored for too long.

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An overheating planet has also created new weather threats across the American Southeast. After years of denying the link between global warming and weather events like tornadoes, climate skeptics now can’t ignore the science: tornados are happening more often in the Mississippi River Valley and the trend will only increase with global warming. Louisiana has been hit by more than 100 tornados since 2023, often at night and sometimes during hurricanes ACORN-affiliate A Community Voice has been organizing for New Orleans to install an outdoor warning system since 2017 – and have built a growing consensus on the need for them. 

Rising temperatures have also made flash flooding much more frequent. In Arkansas and Louisianna, a coalition between Anthropocene Alliance and ACORN members have formed Arkansas Grassroots United and Louisiana Grassroots United – work to protect vulnerable communities from climate catastrophes in their States. Flood warnings are a key battleground as State officials continue to deny the growing threat and the growing need to protect communities facing increased flood risk.

Across the US, the explosive growth of AI data centers is fueling a local resource crisis trapped in a destructive feedback loop with climate change and extreme heat. Frontline communities are witnessing how these massive server hubs strained by rising global temperatures exhaust municipal power grids and guzzle millions of gallons of water daily just to keep from overheating.

This massive utility drain directly compounds the dangers of intense, prolonged summer heatwaves—leaving residents to face skyrocketing electricity bills, threatened water supplies, and a heightened risk of blackouts during peak temperature spikes. In response to tech giants operating behind closed doors with local officials, community members are organizing, mobilizing, and using legal toolkits to demand statewide moratoriums and transparency, forcing governments to protect public health before corporate profit.

What we need to see:

• Safe, climate resilient housing for all
• Access to water, cooling, shade, and public facilities
• Strong heat protections for workers
• Affordable energy and protection from utility shutoffs
• Investment in climate resilient public services and emergency response
• Community leadership in climate planning and decision making
• Treat extreme heat waves as the natural disaster they clearly are

These are the issues facing low-and moderate-income earners wherever they live in the world. 

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In Canada:

Other Canadian sections are focussed on demands for cooling subsidies, energy rebates and changes to property codes that will allow members to heat-proof their homes.VICTORY: In April, Municipal Council in New Westminster, BC has passed a by-law mandating at least one room in every rental unit be kept at 26 degrees Celsius or below. 

At a national level, ACORN Canada is pushing for climate justice, demanding green infrastructure retrofit partnerships and agreements from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, or CMHC must include: 

• Affordability and anti-eviction covenants
• Energy efficiency and mechanical cooling measures
• Allowance of other improvements before energy efficiency and mechanical cooling
• Require landlords to demonstrate benefits for tenants.
• Signed agreements from the landlord made transparent to the tenants
• Formal tenant participation
• Community Benefit Agreements – Agreements signed by the financing entity, the landlord and the tenants.

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In France:

Locataires Ensemble is calling on municipal leaders, starting with the Mayor of Lyon, to enforce the public health code right to “functional and sufficient heating regulation systems” and for the right to renovate their homes to protect from extreme heat.

Locataires Ensemble is also organizing for accountable responsible retrofits, including:

• Comprehensive mapping of building energy efficiency to identify “leaky” inefficient buildings
• Support for tenants including subsidized energy audits and legal services
• Penalties for landlords who refuse to make needed upgrades

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In India:

ACORN India and the Gig Workers Association are demanding that India’s Ministry of Labour and Employment app-based aggregators including Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto, Ola, Uber, Amazon:

In conjunction with Hawkers Joint Action Committee ACORN India is also calling on governments to develop and expand social security mechanisms for workers exposed to extreme heat, particularly those in the informal economy, including include heat-risk insurance, income-loss compensation during periods of extreme heat, emergency cash transfers and expanded access to health and welfare benefits. 

Victory: In the state of Bihar, Gig Workers Association and allies have won a breakthrough in gig economy regulation with new legislation designed to ensure workers access to compensation for injury, welfare benefits, maternity leave and registration of platforms. 

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In the USA:

Demands:

• Don’t force families to choose between overheating and eviction. Cancel plans to scrap the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and re-hire the staff needed to run it.  
• Uphold the right of tenants in affordable housing to air-conditioning that works by enforcing landlord regulations.
• Stop forcing outdoor workers to risk heat injury by mandating employers to provide mandatory breaks, shade, water and safety protocols for outdoor workers when temperatures exceed 80 degrees.
• Protect communities most at risk in natural disasters, including installing warning systems, expanded community cooling resources, heat alerts, and resilience planning and banning utility shut-off bans during heat emergencies

Victory: A Community Voice won a New Orleans ordinance requiring paid heat breaks and access to shaded or air-conditioned rest areas for city and contracted workers. The ordinance requires 10-minute paid breaks every two hours when the heat index reaches 80°F–89°F and 15-minute paid breaks every two hours when the heat index reaches 90°F or higher.

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