EHAP Overview
Across the state, New Yorkers are already experiencing increasingly common and severe effects of extreme heat events, and these events are projected to become widespread, more frequent, severe and prolonged as climate change progresses. Extreme heat impacts unfold unevenly across New York’s communities. Heat deaths occur primarily among communities of color, Indigenous Peoples, low-income communities, the rural poor, and people living in isolation. Additionally, exposed indoor and outdoor workers, people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, seniors, young children, and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to impacts.
Pursuant to Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2022 State of the State directive, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), in partnership with 27 other State agencies and authorities, developed the Extreme Heat Action Plan (EHAP): Adaptation Agenda for 2024—2030 as a roadmap for coordinated action to equitably address extreme heat and its impacts, reduce vulnerability, and build community capacity.
Mission, Goals, and Principles
DEC and NYSERDA convened the Extreme Heat Action Plan Work Group (EHAPWG), comprising 29 State agencies and authorities, to develop this plan. The overall mission of this effort is to address the current and future impacts of extreme heat through specific and equitable actions in a timely manner, reduce historical and present injustices, and coordinate priority assistance to disadvantaged and other vulnerable communities on the frontlines of heat exposure.
To advance this mission, the EHAPWG collaborated with community partners, planners, adaptation practitioners, local government champions and academic experts to identify impacts and options for effective adaptation. To help ensure the plan prioritizes equitable and evidence-based adaptation, DEC and NYSERDA convened two advisory panels, the Community Advisory Panel (CAP) and Scientific Advisory Panel, to inform the plan from the perspectives of impacted communities and academia.
The Extreme Heat Action Plan identifies 49 actions within four action tracks to help advance extreme heat adaptation:
- Action Track 1: Adaptation Planning and Implementation supports communities in planning for extreme heat impacts and in coordinating adaptation activities. This track aims to empower local communities to equitably adapt by strengthening, promoting, and supporting community capacity.
- Action Track 2: Preparedness, Communication, and Workers’ Safety ensures that the people of New York are informed and protected before and during heat events. This track promotes whole of community health, well-being, and resilience of New Yorkers.
- Action Track 3: Built Environment, Infrastructure, and Managed Spaces supports resilience and safety for infrastructure and built spaces. The goal of this track is to create built environments and strengthen community lifeline infrastructures that are healthful, equitable, resilient, and that further the well-being and quality of life of the people who rely on and inhabit them.
- Action Track 4: Ecosystem-Based Adaptation prioritizes adaptation to heat by protecting and strengthening ecosystem service benefits and advancing nature-based solutions. This track safeguards and preserves ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, and ensures that all New Yorkers have access to and equitably benefit from these life-sustaining benefits.
EHAPWG staff identified actions within these action tracks by considering existing and anticipated impacts, potential adverse or unintended consequences of strategies, feasibility of implementation, availability of resources, and authority to implement. A list of all included actions is provided in Table 1.
Implementation and Future Enhancement
Implementation of the extreme heat action plan will be dependent on effective communication, coordination, and collaboration among federal, State, and local partners. Numerous State agencies share leadership responsibilities in addressing extreme heat. The agencies and authorities participating in the EHAPWG will implement the EHAP, with responsibilities designated in individual actions as “lead” and “support.”
An implementation committee, comprising core agency staff, will meet regularly to coordinate implementation and to support agencies and authorities as they implement their individual actions, as well as to receive, consider, and incorporate any public feedback on an ongoing basis.
This committee will identify priorities for advancing implementation, coordinate on EHAP-related activities that support local communities and State agencies through the summer months, identify emergent or changing needs and impacts, and identify potential opportunities for enhancement to extreme heat adaptation. The committee would make publicly available an annual pre-summer update to share implementation progress and pre-summer readiness activities and resources.
The structure, activities, and cadence of the EHAPWG and the implementation committee are intended to evolve to complement the goals of statewide climate resilience efforts, including other state adaptation planning processes, and will be continuously evaluated.
