Editorial: Ominous signs of climate change hard to ignore in India 

Deadly heatwaves are exposing the growing cost of climate change, with workers paying the highest price as rising temperatures push India towards a dangerous future

India is facing the heat — literally as well as economically. Vast swathes of the country have been reeling under heatwave conditions, impacting the livelihoods of millions of people, while back-to-back hikes in fuel prices and rising inflation have only worsened the situation. Extreme heat conditions are no longer a seasonal inconvenience in India. They are becoming a constant, intensifying threat that affects nearly every aspect of daily life. Ultimately, the worst sufferers are the poor and workers in the informal sector, who actually form the backbone of the country’s economy. Of the world’s 100 hottest cities, 90 are in India. The warnings in recent years have been stark. The International Labour Organisation estimated in 2024 that India lost nearly $100 billion due to heat-induced productivity losses. The World Bank cautioned in 2022 that around three-fourths of the labour force in India worked in heat-exposed sectors, while the country alone may account for nearly half of the world’s projected job losses caused by heat stress. The most vulnerable groups include construction workers, farmers and farm labourers, street vendors and delivery agents. When temperatures soar, outdoor work slows or stops entirely. That means lost wages for people who can least afford it. A new report from Harvard’s Salata Institute has called for a shift away from one-size-fits-all solutions towards more localised, targeted adaptation strategies. That includes better early warning systems, more effective heat action plans in cities, and rethinking building designs, using techniques that keep spaces cooler without relying entirely on air conditioning.

India’s current heat action plans are largely temporary relief mechanisms. There is a need for a comprehensive policy framework that treats safe working conditions in the scorching summer months as an inalienable right. In its report submitted earlier this year, the 16th Finance Commission recommended that heatwaves be included on the list of notified disasters under the Disaster Management Act. This classification will enable States and Union Territories to use money from the State Disaster Response Fund for providing relief and assistance to people. Heat-related illnesses and deaths are often underreported, which means the true scale of the crisis could be much larger than official numbers suggest. Experts have been pushing for stronger financial protections, like insurance and social safety nets, to help vulnerable communities cope with income losses during such conditions. Extreme heat conditions come as a grim reminder of the dangers of climate change, a result of the unbridled exploitation of natural resources like coal and other fossil fuels. This is a vindication of the repeated warnings issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about India’s vulnerabilities to extreme heat. For every additional increment of global warming, changes in extremes will continue to be larger. There is a general consensus among experts that the extreme temperatures are directly linked to climate change.

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