Cool Infrastructures: Life With Heat in the Off Grid City

城市气温的上升使获得凉爽的基础设施成为一项全球性挑战。联合国的“人人享有冷却”联盟估计，全球有11亿人很少或根本没有机会获得冷却，以保护他们免受极端高温的影响。被定义为风险最高的人群包括南亚、东南亚和撒哈拉以南非洲的6.3亿人，他们生活在低收入的劣质住房中，电力供应有限、断断续续或不安全，几乎没有任何电气制冷设备。目前的全球和国家城市热行动框架将热对这些城市居民的负面影响归类为公共卫生问题（即导致中暑、脱水和疾病）或经济问题（即导致就业、工人生产力和产出下降）。然而，这种分类大大限制了应对高温行动框架考虑社会经济不平等和性别的方式。在印度和巴基斯坦等一些国家，应对城市极端高温的国际和国家框架已经导致了城市高温行动计划和公众意识的提高。然而，城市规划者和决策者针对过热采取的行动仍然是典型的自上而下和技术驱动的;经常受到孤立的议程、未经审查的能源文化和做法假设以及最贫穷群体的脆弱性的挑战。目前还没有系统的、比较的尝试来记录生活在城市贫困环境中的人们如何管理热量或满足他们对清凉食物、水和空间的需求。因此，几乎没有证据表明目前的战略是否适合其部署的背景。 在36个月的时间里，该项目将把“获得冷却”置于“离网城市”中人类与基础设施相互作用的一项重要的新的跨学科和比较研究的中心。全球升温2-4摄氏度对城市的预期影响使得能源、水和交通的不均衡电网对凉爽基础设施和实践的影响成为学术界的一个紧迫竞技场。在此背景下，以人为本的能源基础设施研究方法有可能通过改变全球、国家和城市各级对冷却需求和能力的理解方式，通过将冷却视为社会和技术问题，以及通过促进可持续的干预措施，对解决过热问题的行动作出重大贡献。我们的研究将在四个城市进行-海得拉巴（印度），卡拉奇（巴基斯坦），雅温得（喀麦隆）和雅加达（印度尼西亚）-使我们能够开发全球南方凉爽基础设施的首次全球比较研究。这四个城市是全球研究热和冷却的关键地点。印度、巴基斯坦和印度尼西亚是世界上九个最大的低收入城市人口中的三个，目前面临着与热有关的风险。喀麦隆是撒哈拉以南非洲地区12个人口增长最快的城市中的两个，面临着与热有关的风险。在每个地方，后殖民时代的城市增长模式、人口密度的增加以及对水和能源基础设施的压力，都加剧了“城市热岛”的影响，加剧了边缘化人群（尤其是女性）的热风险，并塑造了人们谈判获得冷却的具体环境。比较研究将使我们能够使这些做法得到救济，同时在极端高温目前引起紧急关注的城市（如卡拉奇和海得拉巴）与极端高温行动推迟到未来的城市（如雅加达，雅温得）之间建立新的南南伙伴关系。

Rising temperatures in cities make access to cool infrastructures a global challenge. The UN's 'Cooling for All' coalition estimates that 1.1 billion people worldwide have little or no access to cooling to protect them against extreme heat . Those defined as most at risk include 630 million people across South Asia, South East Asia and Sub Saharan Africa who live in poor quality housing on low incomes, with limited, intermittent or insecure access to electricity and few if any electrical cooling appliances. Current global and national frameworks for action on heat in global cities categorise the negative effects of heat on these urban residents as either a public health issue (i.e. leading to heat illness, dehydration and disease) or an economic issue (i.e. leading to a decline in employment, worker productivity and output). Yet this categorisation significantly limits the way that frameworks for action on heat account for socio-economic inequality and gender.In some countries, like India and Pakistan, international and national frameworks for responding to extreme heat in cities have led to urban heat action plans and public awareness raising. However, action on overheating by city planners and policy makers remains typically top-down and technology driven; frequently challenged by silo-ed agendas, unexamined assumptions about energy cultures and practices, and the vulnerabilities of the poorest groups. There have been no systematic, comparative attempts to document how people living in contexts of urban poverty manage heat or meet their needs for cool food, water and space. As a result, there is little evidence about whether current strategies are a good fit for the contexts in which they are deployed. Over 36 months, this project will put 'access to cooling' at the centre of a major new interdisciplinary and comparative study of human-infrastructure interactions in 'the off-grid city'. The projected effects of 2-4 degrees C global heating on cities make the impact of uneven grids for energy, water and transportation on cool infrastructures and practices an urgent arena for scholarship. Against this backdrop, human-centred approaches to the study of energy infrastructures have the potential to make a major contribution to action on overheating by transforming the way cooling needs and capacities are understood at the global, national and city level; by establishing cooling as social as well as technical; and by promoting sustainable interventions. Our research will take place in four cities - Hyderabad (India), Karachi (Pakistan), Yaoundé (Cameroon) and Jakarta (Indonesia) - enabling us to develop the first globally comparative study of cool infrastructures across the Global South. These four cities are critical global sites for research on heat and cooling. India, Pakistan and Indonesia are home to three of the nine largest low income urban populations in the world currently facing heat related risks. Cameroon is home to two of the twelve fastest growing urban populations facing heat related risks in Sub Saharan Africa. In each location, post-colonial patterns of urban growth, increasing population density, and pressures on infrastructures for water and energy are compounding the effect of 'urban heat islands', exacerbating the risks from heat for marginalised people, especially women, and shaping the specific context in which people negotiate access to cooling. Comparative research will allow us to bring these practices into relief, whilst building new South-South partnerships between cities (like Karachi and Hyderabad) in which extreme heat is attracting urgent attention in the present and cities (like Jakarta, Yaoundé) in which action on extreme heat is being deferred into the future.