Eleni Myrivili wants cities to prepare for extreme heat by developing and adopting climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. For her, this work starts in her home city of Athens, where she was appointed Europe’s first chief heat officer in 2021. She's been using the position to raise awareness of the dangers of extreme heat and co-create and co-design a greener, cooler future for all.
In June 2022, through her role as a senior advisor at Arsht Rock Resilience Center -- and following a memorandum of understanding that Arsht Rock signed with the UN Habitat -- Myrivili was named the first-ever global chief heat officer. Her focus is to work on promoting a heat resilience agenda at UN Habitat, the United Nations' program for human settlements and sustainable urban development.
Myrivili has advocated for an environmental, nature-positive and climate-neutral agenda for more than two decades. A tenured assistant professor at the University of the Aegean, she was elected and has served as Deputy Mayor for the City of Athens, where she designed the "Athens Resilience Strategy for 2030" with the collaboration of hundreds.
Session 8 of TED2022 focused on tackling climate change — in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the evolving conditions on Earth and regenerating what we’ve already lost. The session was also linked to TED’s climate project, Countdown, launched in 2020 with the goal of championing and accelerating solutions to the climate crisis. […]
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