Intersecting inequalities and urban heat adaptation

• Generic labels of vulnerable groups in heat planning miss intersecting inequalities. • Structural deficiencies and anti-poor policies exacerbate thermal suffering. • Intersectional disadvantage is detrimental and limits adaptation to excessive heat. • Inclusive heat management needs to address uneven thermal insecurities. Urban heat management often fails marginalised dwellers and communities due to inadequate attention to multidimensional vulnerabilities and intersecting inequalities. An overemphasis on generic characterisations of ‘vulnerable groups’ rather than embodied, lived experiences of heat-related distress risks substantial maladaptive outcomes. It exacerbates thermal insecurities and suffering among most disadvantaged populations while obscuring structural deficiencies around housing, transportation, and energy that sustain uneven power between urban privilege and disadvantage. This empirical study from Perth, Western Australia, and Delhi, India, uses 35 semi-structured interviews and 6 focus group discussions to examine intersecting inequalities and their structural drivers among diversely situated at-risk populations along with insights from governmental employees and members of the not-for-profit sector. We show overlapping layers of systemic disadvantage, substantial barriers to adaptation, and losses, as well as some subversive adaptive action. Our results indicate that concerted efforts are needed—in research, emergency management, and the policy world—to make visible such intersectional thermal suffering and address it via co-created, culturally sensitive, and cross-scalar heat action and adaptation planning.