Spain invests in climate shelters. Is this what the cities of the future will look like?

Heat can kill. Where can people find relief when all around them are streets scorched by the sun? Spain has found an effective solution – climate shelters have been created in cities across the country. What do these places look like and do they work in extreme conditions?

Where to find shelter?

In many cases, climate shelters do not need to be built from scratch. Existing infrastructure can be used instead. In Murcia and Barcelona, these are cool public spaces: museums, libraries, government offices, sports halls and shopping centers.

The creators of the project assumed that climate shelters should be safe, but also attractive for residents and tourists. That is why they choose air-conditioned places accessible to people with disabilities, offering access to running water, as well as WiFi and even books.

Climate shelters are already available in several Spanish cities: Madrid, Bilbao, Murcia, Vitoria, Córdoba and Seville. Barcelona holds the record for the number of such facilities. Residents and tourists there have access to more than 500 locations. They can search for them on an interactive map.

Climate shelters – relief not only during heatwaves

The main purpose of climate shelters is to provide a safe space during periods of high temperatures, which often exceed 40°C. In Barcelona, 300 out of 400 facilities are available all year round. In winter, they protect people from the cold and the dangerous consequences of hypothermia.

Data from Murcia confirms that this solution works. During the summer heatwaves of 2024, climate shelters provided relief for 132 people, most of them experiencing homelessness.

A new normal in the era of climate change?

Extreme heat has accompanied Spaniards for years. The country’s average temperature increased by 1.69°C between 1961 and 2024. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez explains: Devastating droughts and heatwaves are no longer rare. During some summer seasons, we experience not isolated heatwaves, but one long wave stretching from June to August. This is our new normal.

According to data from the Spanish Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo), 21,700 people died from heat-related causes between 2015 and 2023. Most of them were over 65 years old.

That is why climate shelters are not a local, one-time initiative. Plans have been made to create an entire network of safe places in the regions most exposed to high temperatures. Prime Minister Sánchez announced funding from the national budget for such projects.

Will climate shelters become widespread across Europe? Extreme heat is no longer typical only of southern countries. It is appearing even in the cooler north.

Elvira Jiménez Navarro, a doctoral researcher at the Open University of Catalonia’s Digital Transformation and Governance Research Centre, points to the need to create a global network of climate shelters. She justifies this with the following statement: Heat is the greatest environmental threat that is increasing in practically all studied regions of Europe. At the same time, she notes that shelters are only a temporary solution. What we need most in the era of climate change is the transformation of public spaces – investments in blue-green infrastructure, reducing exposure to high temperatures, as well as improving public health and reducing social inequalities.