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Heat extremes are projected to severely impact humanity and with increasinggeographic disparities. Global South countries are more exposed to heatextremes and have reduced adaptation capacity. One documented source of suchadaptation inequality is a lack of resources to cool down indoor temperatures.Less is known about the capacity to ameliorate outdoor heat stress. Here, weassess global inequality in green infrastructure, on which urban residentscritically rely to ameliorate lethal heat stress outdoors. We usesatellite-derived indicators of land surface temperature and urban green spacearea to quantify the daytime cooling capacity of urban green spaces in thehottest months across ~500 cities with population size over 1 million per cityglobally. Our results show a striking contrast with an about two-fold lowercooling capacity in Global South cities compared to the Global North (2.1degrees Celsius vs. 3.8 degrees Celsius). A similar gap occurs for the coolingadaptation benefits received by an average urban resident (Global South 1.9degrees Celsius vs. North 3.6 degrees Celsius), i.e., accounting for relativespatial distributions of people and urban green spaces. This cooling adaptationinequality is attributed to the discrepancies in urban green space quantity andquality between Global North and South cities, jointly shaped by natural andsocioeconomic factors. Our analyses suggest vast potential for enhancingoutdoor cooling adaptation while reducing its global inequality throughexpanding and optimizing urban green infrastructure.

Global Inequality in Cooling from Urban Green Spaces and its Climate Change Adaptation Potential