Cooling our cities is a social necessity, not just climate action

In 2025, India faces extreme urban heat, threatening jobs and economies. AI, digital twins, and green infrastructure are vital for climate resilience.

The summer of 2025 ushers in a perilous new normal as India’s cities endure relentless heat, with Delhi scorching to 41.3 °C and Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Lucknow facing similar extremes.

Heat stress jeopardises 34 million outdoor jobs by 2030 and threatens economic losses of $450 billion by 2050. (Praful Gangurde /HT Photo)

Over 35% of India’s population now lives in urban areas, a figure set to surpass 40% by 2030, where urban nights remain up to 7 °C hotter than surrounding rural areas. Heat stress jeopardises 34 million outdoor jobs by 2030 and threatens economic losses of $450 billion by 2050. While advanced solutions like super cool material coatings on rooftops paired with urban greenery can slash rooftop temperatures by 40 °C and ambient temperature by 4 to 6 °C, but only comprehensive, city-scale interventions can decisively combat this escalating climate emergency.

Emerging technologies offer new frontiers for fighting urban heat. Artificial intelligence (AI)–powered heat mitigation strategies are beginning to show promise globally and India must not lag behind. AI-powered predictive models, trained on vast datasets of urban temperature profiles, land use patterns, population densities, and infrastructure characteristics, can forecast heatwave risks with high spatial resolution and suggest dynamic cooling interventions in real time.

Deployment of Internet of Things–based environmental sensors measuring temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and air quality across urban landscapes can feed real time data into high performance computing tools. These tools, using machine learning and simulation algorithms, can generate heat stress forecasts, optimise cooling infrastructure deployment, and inform emergency response strategies.

The integration of predictive analytics and Internet of Things-enabled environmental monitoring can transform India’s capacity to preempt and manage urban heat challenges. The concept of the urban digital twin unlocks even greater possibilities. An urban digital twin is a virtual replica of a city that integrates real time data feeds from sensors, weather stations, satellite imagery, and citizen inputs.

Using a digital twin, city planners and policymakers can simulate the impact of different heat mitigation measures before implementing them on the ground. For instance, they can model how much a citywide programme of super cool roofs could reduce energy consumption, how planting 10,000 street trees could lower neighbourhood temperatures, or how new building designs could enhance airflow and cooling.

Austin, Singapore, Dubai, and Helsinki have already pioneered urban digital twins, and Indian cities must now invest in developing indigenous digital twin frameworks to future proof urban resilience against extreme heat and other climate shocks.

In this context, the role of urban heat early warning systems becomes critical. Timely alerts based on high-resolution temperature forecasts and real time monitoring can save lives and protect livelihoods. Early warnings must go beyond technical advisories and must be accompanied by clearly defined action protocols such as establishing cooling shelters, restricting outdoor working hours, providing free hydration points, and ensuring rapid medical responses.

Heat health action plans developed in cities like Ahmedabad provide a blueprint, but such systems must now become standard across all Indian metropolitan and tier-II cities. Integrated urban heat alert platforms accessible via smartphones and public information systems can ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable are not left behind when the mercury rises. Urban design must become data-driven.

Climate responsive infrastructure must no longer be an afterthought but a first principle. Data driven design strategies, incorporating findings from Internet of Things sensor networks, urban climate models, and digital twin simulations, can enable the construction of shaded corridors, optimised street layouts, passive ventilation structures, and buildings oriented to maximise natural cooling.

Codes for building materials, roof types, fenestration, and urban greening must be rooted in empirical thermal performance data rather than aesthetic or cost considerations alone. Investment in data-driven design capacity, including artificial intelligence based urban planning platforms and decision support systems, will be critical to equip Indian cities to survive and thrive in an era of rising heat. Beyond technological interventions, cities must reintroduce nature into the urban fabric. Increasing tree canopies, creating shaded public spaces, restoring wetlands and rivers, and integrating green roofs and vertical gardens into buildings can help lower urban temperatures.

Mumbai’s efforts to protect its remaining mangroves, Chennai’s restoration of marshlands, and Pune’s initiatives to integrate green corridors offer hopeful examples. However, these efforts remain piecemeal. What is needed is a systemic, nationwide urban policy that mandates the preservation and expansion of green infrastructure as critical urban assets, on par with roads, water supply, and energy. Crucially, urban heat mitigation must be inclusive.

The voices of low income and marginalised communities must be included in designing interventions. Cooling centres, shaded public spaces, access to clean drinking water, and heat health advisories must be accessible to all. Investing in urban cooling is not just an act of environmental stewardship, it is an act of social justice. It ensures that the benefits of urbanisation do not remain confined to the privileged few but extend to all city residents.

The reality is stark. Heatwaves are no longer exceptional events. They are becoming a structural feature of India’s urban climate. Each passing year of inaction compounds the future risks. By 2050, many Indian cities could experience more than 100 extremely hot days every year if current trends continue. Livelihoods, health, infrastructure, and economic competitiveness are all at stake. Bold investments in urban heat resilience today will yield outsized dividends in terms of human wellbeing, economic productivity, and climate security.

The India Cooling Action Plan is a strategic initiative designed to meet the rising demand for cooling in India while promoting sustainable and energy efficient approaches. The plan sets a target to decrease the overall cooling demand by 20 to 25% and refrigerant usage by 25 to 30% by the year 2037-38. Additionally, it emphasises the reduction of cooling energy needs by 25 to 40% and encourages advancements in research on cooling technologies and solutions.

India’s ambition to lead the global economy must be matched by an ambition to lead in building climate resilient cities. The summer of 2025 must not become another footnote in a series of preventable disasters. It must become the catalyst for a new urban imagination—one where cooling, equity, innovation, and resilience are the core pillars of development.

Super cool roofs, greener cities, artificial intelligence powered predictive models, urban digital twins, Internet of Things enabled environmental monitoring, robust early warning systems, better building codes, and data driven design strategies are not just desirable ideas. They are essential foundations for a sustainable, thriving urban India.

Ansar Khan is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Lalbaba College, University of Calcutta. Khan’s work incorporates simulation and numerical modeling of tropical climatic events.