The framework of this EU-funded project for urban adaptation to Extreme Heat Events (EHE) provides a heuristic analytical tool for understanding, explaining, and developing local adaptation to extreme heat conditions. It was developed in an iterative process building on existing scholarly debates, administrative adaptation plans, and participatory consultation with community stakeholders as a prior step to develop an indicator to ground-test adaptation in European Union’s urban areas. The framework is structured across five different adaptation goals in relation with five different domains: (i) UHI effect, (ii) EHE exposure, (iii) EHE sensitivity, (iv) EHE coping capacity, (v) EHE adaptive capacity. These goals are in turn unfolded into twenty-two adaptation objectives, each of one extensively described and illustrated through a collection of specific adaptation measures or strategies. Then, the commitment and adaptation process of the following EU cities is evaluated: Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Stockholm, Ljubljana, Warsaw, Ghent, and Milan. Results show substantial differences about the extent and depth of the adaptation process, which is not advancing at the same pace than the increase of heat disaster risk across the continent.