Heatwaves – What Extreme Weather Means for Marginalised Communities 

The UK has recorded three of its hottest years ever within the last five, with scientists warning that longer, hotter, and more dangerous summers are now expected. But behind the rising temperatures lies a deeper truth: not everyone is impacted equally. 

Heatwaves are now more frequent, intense, and prolonged, reshaping summer in the UK and putting increasing pressure on communities and infrastructure. While the current string of heatwaves may have passed, this is not a moment to become complacent. Instead, it is a crucial time to take stock, assess what we’ve learned, and ensure our communities are better prepared for the extreme heat events that are not only inevitable but intensifying in the years to come. 

 A heatwave is defined by the Met Office as an extended period of hot weather relative to the expected conditions of the area at that time of year, often accompanied by high humidity. In the UK, a heatwave threshold is met when a location records at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the region-specific threshold set by the Met Office. 

While some can retreat indoors to cool, others are facing overheated homes, unaffordable energy bills, and no safe place to escape the heat. Heatwaves are about inequality, access, and justice. For charities, this isn’t a distant environmental issue; it’s a growing frontline concern affecting the health, dignity, and safety of the people we serve.  

Climate Inequality: Who Bears the Brunt of the Heat? 

Most vulnerable groups in our community, elders, infants, disabled people face serious health risks when heatwaves occur. Therefore, the perceptions of heatwaves vary dramatically. 

As heatwaves increase, so do inequalities in how we experience them. Access to cool spaces, clean drinking water, or something as basic as a working fan is shaped by income. The cost-of-living crisis means many people cannot afford to run cooling devices or buy bottled water. For families in insecure housing or temporary accommodation, especially asylum seekers or recent arrivals, heat becomes a layered crisis.  

Additionally, the Urban Heat Island effect, where built-up areas become significantly hotter than surrounding areas due to dense infrastructure and lack of green space, makes this worse. Inner-city neighbourhoods, often home to large Muslim populations, trap heat in concrete, brick, and asphalt, creating environments that are hotter, day and night. These same communities are more likely to live in overcrowded, poorly ventilated homes, with limited control over indoor temperatures. 

And it’s not just about air temperature. As humidity rises, wet bulb temperatures, which combine heat and moisture to show the point where the human body can no longer cool itself become more difficult to bear. Therefore, people accustomed to hotter climates in the Global South may feel the UK’s humid heat difficult to bear and adapt to. People from ethnic minority backgrounds or refugees from countries like Sudan, Syria, or Pakistan may face unexpected vulnerability when placed in unventilated housing, without knowledge of local services or heat alerts.  

Yet the urgency of extreme heat often goes unrecognised. Public awareness around heat-related risks remains low, especially online, where social media tends to amplify images of summer leisure, beach trips, barbecues, and holidays while the quieter, more dangerous realities of overheated homes, hospitals, and temporary accommodation rarely make headlines. 

This is where Muslim charities can play a vital role. By using their platforms, networks, and trusted voices, they can shift the narrative, raising awareness, sharing life-saving information, and ensuring that digital communications reflect the lived experiences of the most at-risk members of our communities. Our strategies for outreach and education must evolve with the climate. 

Turning Concern into Action: What We Can Do Together 

There are practical, community-led actions we can take now to build climate resilience and protect lives. 

1. Use Tools Like the London Climate Risk Maps 

Tools such as the London Climate Map show which neighbourhoods are most vulnerable to extreme heat and climate-related health risks. Charities working in housing, health, and community development can use these maps to prioritise outreach whether that’s delivering fans, creating cool spaces, or targeting emergency information to high-risk groups. Also, can help with funding applications to provide support in at risk areas.  

2. Deliver Heat Awareness and First Aid 

Just as charities offer first aid and safeguarding training, we now need heat first aid. How to spot heatstroke, respond to dehydration, or help an elder in distress should become part of regular safeguarding practice, especially in organisations that serve youth, elders, or those in unstable housing. 

Sign up to Heat Health alerts here. 

3. Invest in Green and Blue Infrastructure 

Many charities and mosques run community gardens or manage buildings these can be transformed into climate-resilient assets. Add trees, vertical gardens, green roofs, or shaded outdoor seating. Install water fountains or misting stations. Even simple additions like white roofing or shaded courtyards can reduce local temperatures and create safe summer sanctuaries. 

4. Act as Cooling Hubs 

Charities with physical spaces community centres, mosques, food banks, advice clinics can open their doors during peak heat hours. Provide water, fans, and resting spaces. Many UK mosques already do this informally. With a bit of coordination and local authority support, this could become a national network of community cooling hubs. Also, you don’t have to do this alone you can get a local business to collaborate on this or contact your local authority to find out wider heat related initiatives. 

Sign up here to register as a Cool Space in London. 

Conclusion 

If heatwaves are here to stay, we must not allow inequality to become normal too. Climate adaptation must be about more than policies it must be about people, but for that to take place we need to understand climate related impacts affecting our communities.  

That means asking: who is most exposed? Who is least protected? And who is already stepping up? 

Get in contact with our Sustainability and Climate Action Officer for more information on how to get your local community to become more climate resilient: [email protected] 

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