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Heatwave: Can we redesign cities to cope with extreme temperatures?

Britain has registered its hottest ever temperature as a heatwave passes across western Europe. Temperatures are still rising and have passed 40 degrees Celsius in the UK for the first time ever.

Professor Mikhail Chester is Director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University in Phoenix in the US. There, temperatures can reach up to 47 degrees Celsius. He told Newsday: “Infrastructure is ultimately designed with the environment in mind” but the UK is “under-designed for the heat that we’re experiencing today let alone the temperatures that we’re forecasting into the future…the question…is how much can we retrofit?”

(Picture: Man cools down in a fountain in Spain. Credit: EPA.)

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