Confronting Heat Challenges—Cross-Sector Strategies for National Resilience: A Report from the 2024 HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit
Date
2024-11-04
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Repository Usage Stats
views
downloads
Abstract
The HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit is a key component of a cyclical two-year program that encompasses stakeholder engagement, event planning, biannual convening, reporting key findings, and outreach to policymakers. During the 2023 engagement phase, Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at the Nicholas Institute, held regular meetings with legislators and agency leaders at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as with leaders from the philanthropic, finance, and insurance sectors, and community and faith-based organizations. These discussions informed the three core themes for the inaugural HeatWise Summit:
Rural Heat Vulnerability: Developing tailored strategies for rural contexts, considering unique characteristics and needs of rural populations
Data for Risk, Exposure, and Impact: Addressing data gaps in heat mitigation and resilience for informed decision-making
Blended Finance and the Future Role of Insurance: Exploring financial tools for mitigating heat impacts through public-private partnerships
The Summit convened 106 participants, including participants from civil society (10), the private (23) and public sectors (19), community organizations (23), academia (27), and philanthropy (4), marking a significant step toward building a coalition to confront the escalating threat of extreme heat. Participants were asked to summarize a key takeaway from the event in a post-event survey. These takeaways reflect a broad consensus on the need for immediate action, collaboration, and targeted approaches to address the challenges posed by extreme heat, particularly for the most disadvantaged populations.
As written and adopted, this report seeks to capture the essence of participant conversations, but individual participants may not agree with every aspect of the report. Rather, in affixing their name as a signatory, a participant is signaling support for the overarching concept of the series and the broad outcomes discussed herein. The participants took part in their individual capacity and their affiliations and titles are included here for identification purposes only. Their organizations are not responsible for the findings, principles, recommendations, or other content of this report.
Type
Department
Description
Provenance
Subjects
Citation
Permalink
Citation
Ward, Ashley, Jordan Clark, Lillian Watson and Julee Snyder (2024). Confronting Heat Challenges—Cross-Sector Strategies for National Resilience: A Report from the 2024 HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31677.
Collections
Scholars@Duke
Ashley Ward
Ashley’s work focuses on the health impacts of climate extremes and community resilience. She directs the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. In this role, Ashley brings together scientists and communities to develop and deploy innovative policy solutions that reduce the impacts of extreme heat on human health and well-being.
Ashley’s career has focused on engaging communities to identify and address issues related to climate change, and helping communities develop long-term, sustainable strategies relevant to their needs.
Ashley’s previous work with NOAA’s Carolinas Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) team connected rural and urban communities and policy-decision makers with relevant climate and health data, particularly related to vulnerabilities and impacts.
Ashley has continued to bridge the gap between science, data, policy, and community at Duke’s Nicholas Institute. In this setting, she works with communities, public agencies, and policymakers to create and inform effective policy solutions to difficult environmental challenges.
Prior to launching the Heat Policy Innovation Hub, Ashley has worked on the Internet of Water (IoW) Coalition at the Nicholas Institute, helping public agencies modernize their water data infrastructure to better manage water resources. On the IoW team, Ashley has led stakeholder and policy engagement, pilot programs, and the development of the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) designed to guide public agencies through the organizational and behavioral changes needed to modernize their water data infrastructure.
Before her work with Duke and RISA, Ashley completed her PhD in geography and worked with communities throughout NC on a host of issues such as local food availability and asset-based economic development strategies. Ashley’s passion is building coalitions to advance scientific understanding and communicate information in a way that is relevant for use by decision-makers. Having worked in a broad range of communities with varying levels of capacity, Ashley is particularly thoughtful about meeting communities where they are and working from there to achieve community goals.
Material is made available in this collection at the direction of authors according to their understanding of their rights in that material. You may download and use these materials in any manner not prohibited by copyright or other applicable law.