Emma Bacon is helping communities beat the heat

Although heatwaves cause more deaths than all other disasters combined, the stories of those living in debilitating heat are rarely told. As our summers become longer, hotter and drier, this is something Emma Bacon wants to change. She started Sweltering Cities to campaign for heat to be recognised as a health
emergency and support communities lobby for more
liveable, equitable and sustainable cities.

Emma Bacon lives on Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung Land
In conversation with Jess Bineth
Photos by Alex McClintock

Emma Bacon, founder of Sweltering Cities. Photo: Alex McClintock.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself and where you belong?

I’m currently living on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people, but I grew up on the lands of the Gadigal people in the inner city of Sydney with a really politically active family. We talked a lot about injustice – not just the problems, but also the solutions. That really set me on a path of thinking about what I want to contribute to this world and it’s shaped the career I have now. I worked for ten years in the environment, social justice and union movements, and now my focus is on climate justice and extreme heat.

You do that through your work with Sweltering Cities, a group working with communities who are feeling the extreme impacts of climate change. How did this become your focus?

Even though I grew up in the inner city, my dad grew up in Western Sydney and I spent a lot of time there as a kid visiting my grandparents in Merrylands. It’s a complex and exciting place. It’s also very politically important nationwide, because one in ten people in Australia live in Western Sydney. Heat is a huge issue in this area and it’s getting worse every year. I was personally feeling a growing sense of urgency and occasional panic about climate change and I could see all these big conversations happening about fires and floods, but there was very little being said about heat in a way that had power. So I decided to take the leap and focus on this issue.

You describe heat waves as a silent killer. Can you tell me more about this and how the heat is impacting people in Western Sydney?

Heatwaves are our deadliest environmental disaster. They kill more people than all other disasters combined. It impacts everyone – the elderly, people living with disabilities and chronic illness, but also young kids, pregnant people, those taking medication. There are so many health and social impacts to this which we don’t talk about enough, like the impact on mental health and how during heat waves we see an increase in domestic violence. In Sydney’s west it already gets to almost 50 degrees on a hot day, which is terrifying. When we spoke to people living in this area the word that came up over and over is dread – how much they dread the summer. They told us about how they sometimes can’t leave the house and how anxious they feel sending their kids off to school. This community have a keen sense of the inequality in our society and feel like decision makers don't understand their experiences and aren't acting to solve the problems of their everyday lives. But they also have this incredible enthusiasm for their local communities and for their neighbours and for their future. So Sweltering Cities is about supporting these people to lobby decision-makers about recognising climate change as a public health issue and then campaign for more resilient and sustainable cities.

At the heart of your work is climate justice. As Sweltering Cities expands its reach across Australia, how are you addressing this?

There are many different futures we can imagine, but one future I think about a lot is where we do reduce carbon emissions and we do limit the worst impacts of climate change, but we do it in a way that replicates or potentially exacerbates the inequalities of our present. That's a future where the very wealthy drive electric vehicles and never worry about the cost of turning on the air conditioning because they have solar panels and batteries. And the poor don't have access to fresh air or fresh fruit and vegetables and are living in unbearably hot homes. When we talk about solving the climate crisis, it can’t just be about carbon emissions and mitigation, it also has to be about adaptation. Otherwise we will miss a huge opportunity to support vulnerable communities to adapt in a way that increases their standard of living, increases justice and increases the health of communities overall.

Bus stops have become a focus area for Sweltering Cities, which given the scale of climate change could be considered a pretty niche! What’s important about bus stops?

Yes, I’m quite at risk of becoming known as that person obsessed with bus stops. But the strategy is that collective power is driven by a common lived experience and I think no matter where you live, everyone knows what it feels like to be waiting for a bus while standing out in the sun on a hot day. So bus shelters are how we can talk about the heat and infrastructure inequality in a way that is common and visceral, and it’s something the communities we are working with really grabbed on to and want to address. There is lots of really excellent work being done on renewables and energy efficiency, but we see our role as talking about public spaces, because tackling climate action one house at a time or one car at a time is too slow and it will leave behind the people who are least able to afford upgrades. Plus, renewably powered electric cars are not going to get us to net zero alone. Any good strategy has to include a huge shift towards public transport and we think making our network more accessible with great bus shelters and electric buses is an obvious step.

How has winning Groundswell funding helped Sweltering Cities with its work?

The funding from Groundswell came at a really pivotal time. We were a small and emerging organisation and it allowed us to do some deep work in the Penrith area, which is one of one of the hottest urban areas in Australia. The grant allowed us to partner with the Australian Institute to do research to give us really compelling data and stories, which we have then amplified. We’ve shared them with Western Sydney MPs and the media, drawing more attention to heatwaves and kick starting conversations about policy solutions.

As for our vision, Sweltering Cities is aiming to transform the way we think and talk about heatwaves to drive urgency for climate action, and ambitious equitable adaptation. We talk about issues of extreme heat through a health lens and empower people to talk about the visceral experiences of extreme heat. We believe that climate justice needs to be global, and local, and that we can grow the movement of people who will take action by talking about climate change in a way that they already see in their streets, homes and workplaces. For so many people, climate change isn’t a distant problem, it’s a current one. If we’re going to credibly work together with communities to build a bigger movement for climate justice then we need to be taking lived experience and ideas for better communities seriously.

Finally, what motivates you and gives you hope?

I’m motivated by the communities I work with. Talking to people and hearing their stories and ideas for the city and for the planet. It’s changed the way I look at our cities. I’m learning through working with others how to imagine what sustainable, just, net-zero carbon cities might look like. I feel very lucky, it’s a great job.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity's sake.

arielle gambleNovember 4, 2022