Climate change is expected to bring a host of environmental threats and ecological changes across New York State, including extreme heat and heat waves.^1,2 The effects of rising temperatures and extreme heat can be more pronounced in urban areas due to a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. Heat islands are urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures due to buildings, roads, and other infrastructure that absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes such as forests and water bodies. Areas with highly concentrated structures and limited greenery become “islands” of higher temperatures, relative to outlying areas. Elevated temperatures from heat islands can adversely affect a community’s environment and quality of life in multiple ways, especially through the need for increased energy consumption for cooling.³

In Syracuse, as in other cities across New York State, the effects of heat islands can have immense environmental and energy justice implications. Due to 20th-century planning decisions (e.g., redlining, highway siting), the effects of heat islands in Syracuse are felt unevenly across neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that are low-income and have higher populations of people of color have more heat-absorbing buildings and pavements and fewer cool spaces with trees and greenery. For example, Interstate 81 was sited disproportionately through majority-Black neighborhoods in Syracuse.⁴ The impervious, heat-trapping surface of the highway—along with the lack of temperature-regulating land cover such as trees, greenspace, and waterways—has made the neighborhoods near Interstate 81 more vulnerable to extreme temperatures.

While it is vital that local and state energy policy address energy burdens, strategies are already underway to relieve energy inequality and urban heat islands. In 2020, to help address these issues, Syracuse adopted the Syracuse Urban Forest Master Plan. The goal of this plan is to plant tens of thousands of trees, many in environmental justice communities. Trees and vegetation can combat excessive urban temperature disparities by providing needed cooling while also providing a host of local socioeconomic and environmental benefits, including lower energy demand and costs, workforce development associated with plantings and maintenance, air purification, erosion reduction, and flood control. Trees alone will not prevent urban heat islands in Syracuse; however, in concert with broader energy, public health, and environmental policy, they will help the city transition to a safer, healthier, and more just future.