Covering climate change in the city of love

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Covering Climate Change in the City of Love"

Consider This from NPR (August 16, 2025)

Host: Scott Detrow
Guest: Eleanor Beardsley, NPR Paris Correspondent
Featured Voices: Ziad Tuat (heat drill organizer), Etan Levy (Roofscapes)

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Overview

In this episode, "Covering climate change in the city of love," NPR explores how Paris—a city renowned for its romance and charm—is facing the harsh realities of climate change, particularly extreme heat waves. Through a reporter’s notebook conversation with longtime Paris correspondent Eleanor Beardsley, the episode delves into why Paris is becoming increasingly vulnerable to deadly heat events, how the city is adapting, and what lessons other urban areas might take from its experience.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Heat Waves and Paris’ Unique Vulnerabilities

• Paris’ Built Environment and Increased Risk:
  • Scott Detrow sets the scene with a story of Paris students holding a heatwave drill in an abandoned railway tunnel—demonstrating new adaptations to rising temperatures. (00:00–01:07)
  • Paris is one of Europe's densest cities, with limited greenery and iconic but problematic architecture. Many Haussmann-era buildings, especially those with "romantic" zinc mansard roofs, become lethal heat traps in summer:

    "If you were to live in one of those attic apartments...you have a four times the chance of dying than somebody who lives on a lower floor in a heat wave. Because those zinc rooftops can heat up to 70 and 80 degrees centigrade." —Eleanor Beardsley [03:19]

  • The problem recasts Paris’ famed rooftops as a deadly liability in this changing climate.

2. The Human Cost and History of Heat Waves

• Escalating Summer Crisis:
  • Eleanor recalls the 2003 European heatwave that killed about 15,000 people in France, mostly elderly in Parisian apartments—a national trauma (04:18).
  • “People used to refer to that summer of 2003, but now we've actually had many summers of 2003. Not as deadly, but every year now it seems we're having heat waves...” —Eleanor Beardsley [04:31]
  • Heat waves are becoming earlier and more frequent.

3. Reporting on Climate Change

• Challenges of Coverage:
  • Discusses the nuances of attributing any single event to climate change, but notes that the frequency and trend are undeniable:

    "There's just been so many more heat waves in the last 20 years than there were in this previous century." —Eleanor Beardsley [05:41]

  • In France and much of Europe, climate change is broadly accepted as fact, rather than a debated political issue.

4. Urban Adaptation and Innovations in Paris

• City-Level Solutions:
  • Paris is rethinking its urban environment:
    • Planting Vines and Urban Forests:
      • "There's another thing you do. You get vines. You cover buildings in vines. That cools them down." —Eleanor Beardsley [06:24]
      • Example: A “little forest” planted in front of Hôtel de Ville, transforming a heat-trapping stone plaza [07:12].
    • Reducing Cars and Promoting Bikes:
      • 750 miles of protected bike lanes across the city to cut car traffic and improve air quality.
    • Innovative Rooftop Projects:
      • Etan Levy of Roofscapes explains new timber and plant-covered platforms on Paris rooftops to provide shade and cooling:

      "First of all, we’re trying to create a shading effect...with this timber platform, we're very much trying to add more greenery." —Etan Levy [08:44]

      • Top-floor apartments, once scenic and desirable, now pose serious heat risks. The platforms are part garden, part social space. Soil and plants cool buildings significantly, since wood doesn’t conduct heat the way zinc does.

5. Living with a New Rhythm

• Adapting Daily Life and Tourism:
  • Despite the challenges, Paris retains its allure for visitors, though summer visitors must adapt:

    "Paris lives at night when it’s really hot...There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people out walking, jogging, biking, having wine, sitting there. It was midnight. It felt like 6pm and it was midnight." —Eleanor Beardsley [09:34]

  • Advice: Know where parks and cool spots are, and shift routines to avoid the heat.

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Notable Quotes

• On the shift in Parisian summers:

  "People used to refer to that summer of 2003, but now we've actually had many summers of 2003."
  —Eleanor Beardsley [04:31]

• On the risks of Paris’s iconic rooftops:

  "If you were to live in one of those attic apartments...you have a four times the chance of dying than somebody who lives on a lower floor in a heat wave."
  —Eleanor Beardsley [03:19]

• On adapting the Paris lifestyle:

  "Paris lives at night when it’s really hot...the rhythm of the day completely changes."
  —Eleanor Beardsley [09:34]

• On rooftop innovation:

  “First of all, we’re trying to create a shading effect...And second of all, with this timber platform, we’re very much trying to add more greenery.”
  —Etan Levy [08:44]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–01:07] — Heatwave drill in Paris railway tunnel: Adaptation in real time
• [02:20–03:48] — Paris’ vulnerabilities: Architecture, lack of trees, density
• [04:18–05:07] — History and deadly effects of heat waves in France
• [05:36–06:08] — Reporting the nuance of climate change
• [06:08–08:15] — How Paris is trying to adapt: trees, vines, bike lanes, rooftop gardens
• [08:15–09:08] — Rooftop solutions and technology: Roofscapes interview
• [09:34–10:17] — Living with extreme heat; advice for residents and tourists

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Memorable Moments

• The image of a romantic Haussmann rooftop now doubling as a dangerous heat trap.
• The transformation of public spaces like Hôtel de Ville with mini urban forests.
• Daily life in Paris shifting to nighttime to cope with sweltering summer heat.

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Conclusion

This episode highlights the evolving challenge of urban heat in Paris, marrying the city’s enduring romance with the urgent need for climate adaptation. Through Eleanor Beardsley’s seasoned perspective and innovative voices like Etan Levy’s, listeners see both the city’s risks and its resilience. The message is clear: Paris is still Paris, but surviving—and thriving—requires new rhythms and novel solutions in a warming world.

Transcript

[Scott Detrow]

Circling the city of Paris is an old abandoned railway. It was built in the 19th century and for decades it shuttled people and goods around the perimeter of the city. These days the defunct rails are used as walking paths and in the fall of 2023, one of its tunnels was used as a makeshift classroom.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

We went down and there were little desks set up in the tunnel and they were ready to have the kids have school down there.

[Scott Detrow]

That is Eleanor Beardsley, NPR's longtime correspondent in Paris.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

It was a drill, but not for, you know, terrorist attack or something like that. It was for a heat wave.

[Scott Detrow]

A heat wave. Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average. And in recent years, Paris has consistently been hit by so called heat domes, a phenomenon where sweltering heat stays in place for days, not just in the middle of the summer.

[Ziad Tuat]

Putin have a heat dome on May, on June, on September.

[Scott Detrow]

That's Ziad Tuat, who helped organize the heat wave drill that Eleanor visited in 2023.

[Ziad Tuat]

So we have to think about the future and to be sure that any student can go to school for two or three days, even if it's in a tunnel or in a parking.

[Scott Detrow]

Consider this Paris has increasingly found itself on the front line of the climate crisis. And covering the city and the rest of France now means regularly reporting on deadly climate events. From npr, I'm Scott Detrow.

[Ziad Tuat]

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[Scott Detrow]

NPR correspondent Eleanor Beardsley moved to Paris in 2004, and since then, one story has increasingly become part of her climate change. So for this week's Reporter's Notebook series, I wanted to talk to Eleanor about covering climate change in the City of Love.

[Interviewer]

Europe is heating up faster than the global average and Paris in particular can get extremely hot. You get these heat domes and and people are Dying. This is serious. What is it about Paris that makes it so vulnerable to heat?

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Well, Scott, Paris is one of the most densely populated cities in Europe. Paris also lacks trees. I mean, you will see beautiful tree lined avenues and beautiful parks, but not everywhere. And some places you go to are just, you know, concrete or stone and there's just no shade to be had. There's also these old beautiful quintessential Paris buildings, Haussmann era Baron von Haussmann, who was the architect for Napoleon iii. And these typical Paris roof, even if you don't know this name, mansard roofs, you've seen them, they're like with these dormer windows that come down the roof, come to. Oh yeah, they're really romantic. And you know, you think of a Garrett apartment, well, if you were to live in one of those attic apartments, you would have. Even on the top floor of a building with a roof like that, you have a four times the chance of dying than somebody who lives on a lower floor in a heat wave. Because those zinc rooftops can heat up to 70 and 80 degrees centigrade. And so it's like 130, 40, 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. And it just makes it unbearable and dangerous.

[Interviewer]

What a on point metaphor for all of this. Like this one image that everyone has in their mind of like romantic Paris is actually a huge problem in 2025 due to the heat.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

It's true. And yeah, I've always wanted to live in one of those buildings and now I'm thinking twice about it.

[Interviewer]

This, I think is something that a lot of American listeners don't fully grasp. And you've been covering the city this beat for a long time. Did you ever think that like, just like the basics of the heat in the summer would be a part of your beat?

[Eleanor Beardsley]

No, I never did. I actually moved over here in 2004 and the year before 2003 there was probably the big first huge wake up heat wave. And about 15,000 people died in France that year. And many of those were old people alone in apartments in Paris. And the whole country just was reeling and it was a big wake up call. But you know, people used to refer to that summer of 2003, but now we've actually had many summers of 2003. Not as deadly, but every year now it seems we're having heat waves and they're compared to maybe this summer of 2016. I mean, it's just. And this year we've already had two. And they came in June and the very beginning of July So they're coming more frequently and earlier. And so it is quite, quite frightening, actually.

[Interviewer]

Let me ask as a reporter, how you approach the climate change aspect of this, because that can be tricky to cover on a lot of different fronts. You want to be, you don't want to oversimplify, you know, because there is nuance. Even if we see the big picture trends, you can't tie everything directly to climate change. No, you need to think about just the overall tone of the frequency because frankly, it can be a bleak topic to cover. There's a lot of challenges. How do you think about that when you are doing stories on these heat waves and putting that important, broader context into it?

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Well, it's true. You cannot, you know, link every forest fire and every heat wave to climate change. And so you don't. But there is a trend that we're seeing. I know that from covering these. There's just been so many more heat waves in the last 20 years than there were in this previous century. So there is a trend. Climate is not so much a political issue in Europe and people here believe basically, and that there is climate change going on when people are suffering. You kind of can see beyond the political dimensions of this.

[Interviewer]

You know, a lot of European cities especially are really rethinking their overall architecture to deal with these challenges that are going to be here for the foreseeable future. You mentioned trees, you mentioned the roofs. Is Paris trying to address either of those particular challenges in broader ways?

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's another thing you do. You get vines. You cover buildings in vines. That cools them down. And culling buildings, we've built too densely because you need airflow coming through buildings. Yeah. And actually the city of Paris, the mayor has cut way back on automobile traffic, individual cars. So there's 750 miles of protected bike lanes, Scott, in this city, that means there's a ramp. Like you can't, a car can't. You can cross the city of Paris on your bike and never go in a car lane. And that has helped a lot. That's helped the air quality. And they're also planting what are known as these little mini urban forests. I was just the other day in front of the Hotel de Ville, which is the main city hall in Paris. And it, that was just a massive esplanade of stone. And so it was always very hot. And they have planted like these massive planters of full grown forest, ferns and ivy, but also trees, saplings, but also full grown trees. I was stunned. I couldn't. Someone told me about it and I said, I gotta see this. I don't believe it. And I went and there it was, a little forest in front of the Hotel de Ville. And, and also, you know, talking about these rooftops being so hot, I met a young guy, his name is Etan Levy. He helped co found a company called Roofscapes and he took me up to the very top of one of these buildings to show me their product. And what it is are these massive wooden planters that go on the roofs. They are places where you can sit out and enjoy the view of Paris. But also they plant all kinds of plants and there's the soil and the greenery and that cools it down into immensely because wood does not conduct heat. And so here's Etan Levy telling me about these timber platforms that they're putting on the roofs now. Wow. These are the rooftops of Paris.

[Etan Levy]

We're surrounded by a sea of zinc roofs and chimneys.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Nevis says these romantic looking zinc rooftops absorb heat. Their surface temperature can reach 70 degrees Celsius, 158 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, residents on the top two floors of these historic buildings have four times the chance of dying in a heat wave. Levy is part of a new company called Roofscapes that wants to build timber platforms on top of the zinc roofs.

[Etan Levy]

First of all, we're trying to create a shading effect.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

The wood will keep solar radiation from directly reaching the zinc surfaces.

[Etan Levy]

And second of all, with this timber platform, we're very much trying to add more greenery. The majority of our platforms is going to be covered with soil and plants, which will further help decrease the temperatures inside the buildings.

[Interviewer]

I don't want to make light of these really serious trends because like you said, these are serious heat waves. People are dying from them. These are major problems. But Eleanor, I just want to say, like, as you know, to me at least you have like the most idyllic posting on paper in npr. And I have to ask you, like, are you telling us that we should no longer think about visiting Paris in the summer? Like, what do you do? If this is a city, what is it you're hearing stories like this.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Well, first of all, I would say no, you have to still come to Paris. It's a beautiful city, but be aware that it could get hot. Know where the parks are, rivers. You could go to a movie in the middle of the day if you need to, or go into a cool department store. And I will say this, this is kind of a neat, romantic thing. Paris lives at night when it's really hot. I mean, I was out doing my daily walk on the Seine River. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people out walking, jogging, biking, having wine, sitting there. It was midnight. It felt like 6pm and it was midnight. And so you kind of live at night, but that does make you sleep too late the next day. But you just the rhythm of the day completely changes. I would say still come, but but be aware that it could happen.

[Scott Detrow]

That was NPR Paris correspondent Eleanor Beardsley. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and Janaki Mehta. It was edited by Adam Raney. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigun. It's considered this from npr. I'm Scott Detrow.

[Etan Levy]

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[Eleanor Beardsley]

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[Interviewer]

I'm bringing hell with me.

[Etan Levy]

Listen to the podcast here and now anytime from NPR and wbur.

[Ziad Tuat]

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