Palm Springs to host first Extreme Heat Summit, bringing together experts on climate resilience ⋆ The Palm Springs Post

*Pedestrians walk along a Downtown Palm Springs sidewalk as a misting system cools the air. (File photo)*

City officials and staff are gearing up to host the first ever Extreme Heat Summit, which will bring public health experts, government officials, urban planners, nonprofit organizations and community advocates to the Palm Springs Convention Center to discuss what the city describes as “one of the most urgent climate challenges facing communities today.”

“With extreme heat being one of the frequent events that the Coachella Valley experiences, we are attempting to pull together different leaders to have more robust conversations about what community resilience looks like from the government planning standpoint, from the research side, public health, and working with community members to build strategies to increase resilience,” said Jasmine Fields, director of sustainability for Palm Springs.

The Extreme Heat Summit, planned by the city’s Department of Sustainability in partnership with the Office of Emergency Management, will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 18.

The theme of the summit is “Heat as Infrastructure: Designing Systems, Cities and Services for Resilience,” and four sessions will focus on the human cost of extreme heat, where people go when systems fail, designing cooler cities and scaling healthy and climate-resilient communities.

Palm Springs Mayor Naomi Soto will make a welcome speech, followed by a keynote address from Diane Morales, public policy lead for the Blue Zones Project in Palm Springs.

Other speakers include Anuj Desai, senior advisor for climate adaptation and resilience at SoCal Edison; Ladd Keith, director of the Heat Resilience Initiative at the University of Arizona; Christian Rodriguez Ceja, community principal at Kounkuey Design Initiative (which led the team behind the city’s parks master plan); and Jenna LeComte-Hinley, chief executive officer at Health Assessment and Research for Communities, a Palm Desert-based nonprofit that produces reports on health in the Coachella Valley.

The heat summit is “a continuation” of conversations held at a similar heat summit in Riverside last year, said Fields.

The city will host the summit after several summers in a row that have been punctuated by shattered daily and monthly temperature records in Palm Springs. During the summer of 2024, the city experienced a 22-day streak of temperatures hitting above 110 degrees, and that July ended with an average high of 114.9 degrees, which was a new July record.

Since 1970, average annual temperatures in Palm Springs have gotten 2.1 degrees warmer, according to Climate Central, and the city has experienced an average of 27 more days over 86.95 degrees each year. And it’s only getting hotter: climate change is expected to increase average daily high temperatures in the Coachella Valley by 8 to 14 degrees by the end of this century.

*the city has made sure that new playground equipment being installed at multiple parks (such as Victoria Park, seen here) has an accompanying shade element. (File photo)*

The summit will focus on strategies the Coachella Valley, California and other parts of the country can take to prepare for extreme heat events.

“I’m coming from the East Coast, and I’ll tell you that last month it was 105 degrees in Maryland,” Fields said. “So, although these high temperatures are pretty unique to these desert environments, as a sustainability professional, I also see the temperature climbing up in cities that usually don’t get over 100.

“said Fields. “I’m hopeful that we can share ideas with other communities so that they can be better prepared for when the temperature increases where they’re at.”

The summit will also discuss federal funding available for extreme heat and resilience planning, according to Fields.

The city’s own recent heat efforts include a shade and heat mitigation plan that’s currently underway and will focus on vulnerable communities in Palm Springs. This summer, the Palm Springs City Council also extended the summer hours of the Palm Springs Access Center to provide additional relief from the heat for people experiencing homelessness.

Fields said she hopes that “everybody would be able to pull something” from the upcoming heat summit.

“There’ll be sessions focused on local government planning, and I think even if you’re not in the space of government planning, having this information as a resident to be able to advocate for different things in the community is valuable,” said Fields.

Details: Registration for the Extreme Heat Summit costs $28.50 and includes lunch. Potential attendees can register at extremeheatsummit2026.eventbrite.com. A limited number of discounted registrations are available, those interested can email sustainability@palmspringsca.gov. The city is also looking for volunteers to help support the event.