Climate and Us | India needs an emergency plan for heat extremes
In many parts of India, winter switched to summer, with not even a fleeting spring in between, and average temperatures on a consistent incline. India needs a robust plan, now.
The poles are on fire. The Associated Press reported on March 20 that parts of Antarctica recorded maximum temperatures that are more than 40 degrees Celsius warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 30 degrees Celsius warmer than average. Scientists were quoted saying that they have never seen anything like this, especially with both poles sweltering at the same time.
The impact of such excessive heat needs to be understood from the point of view of common people — daily labourers; farmers; traders; fishermen etc. (PTI)
In many parts of India, winter switched to summer, with not even a fleeting spring in between.
Most parts of western Rajasthan, Marathwada and Vidarbha in Maharashtra, and parts of Gujarat, Odisha continued to reel under severe heatwave-like conditions all of last week, with maximum temperatures hovering well over 40 degrees Celsius. The foothills of the Western Himalayas recorded very high day and night temperatures, with towns like Una and Sundernagar recording temperatures 7 to 10 degrees above normal. Delhi recorded a maximum of 36.6 degrees C on Saturday, 6 degrees above normal.
There are many immediate reasons that can explain this unusual heat in mid-March but India Meteorological Department (IMD)’s long-term temperature trends indicate that the climate crisis is having a pronounced impact on increasing the frequency and severity of heatwaves in India.
Average temperatures across seasons have seen a sharp upward trend in the country since 1991. The temperature rising trend is more evenly pronounced during monsoon (June to September) and post-monsoon (October to December) seasons, IMD’s data shows. Heatwaves associated with abnormally high temperatures over certain areas, which could also be fatal to humans and animals, are also on a rise across the country, while there is a declining trend in the occurrence of cold waves.
The impact of such excessive heat needs to be understood from the point of view of common people — daily labourers; farmers; traders; fishermen etc. Beyond numbers and graphs that capture the impact of the climate crisis, the human experience of living in oppressive heat needs to be understood by policymakers.
I was visiting my father’s hometown and ancestral village in rural Bengal last week. A dry heat had replaced the spring. Dry, hot winds are not common in sultry Gangetic West Bengal. On National Highway-2 (NH2) connecting Kolkata to Delhi, the stretch between Singur and Burdwan is dotted with stumps of what were once large and old trees. Thousands of trees have been cut down to make way for a six-lane superhighway here. Scores of tree trunks are seen piled up in a large area for further auctioning across NH2. Locals said this March has been unusually warm and dry due to the loss of these trees. Farmers are seen toiling on their potato fields with not a single shaded tree to rest for long stretches. In towns like Burdwan, high-rises have replaced traditional housing in many areas with little thought on incorporating thermal comfort and hence high dependence on air conditioning.
The combination of ecologically degrading infrastructure projects and heat extremes can be lethal.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its working group II report titled Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability flagged that heat extremes are causing human deaths and morbidity. And the fallout is far more complex than we can imagine. For example, the concurrence of heat and drought events are causing crop production losses and tree mortality. Global warming of 1.5 degrees C will increase the risk of simultaneous crop losses of maize in major food-producing regions; future sea-level rise combined with storm surge and heavy rainfall will increase compound flood risks; risks to health and food production will be made more severe from the interaction of sudden food production losses from heat and drought, exacerbated by heat-induced labour productivity losses. These interacting impacts will increase food prices, reduce household incomes, and lead to malnutrition and climate-related deaths, especially in tropical regions, the IPCC has said.
The government should come out with a policy to deal with the suffering and disability caused by heat extremes in different parts of the country. Water kiosks, cooling shelters, staggered outdoor work hours, cool roofs for buildings and homes are certain things that should be put in place immediately.
India, along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, recorded the greatest losses to work hours due to heat exposure in 2020, according to the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change released last year. Heat action plans similar to the Ahmedabad heat action plan should be also implemented in vulnerable regions.
After the heat action plan was implemented in 2013 in Ahmedabad, heat-related mortality reduced by 30% to 40% over the years according to experts at the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gujarat. Further, every infrastructure project involving the loss of trees and forests needs to be vetted cautiously against its impact on local meteorology.
For now, we should put an emergency plan in place to handle heat extremes this summer.
From the climate crisis to air pollution, from questions of the development-environment tradeoffs to India’s voice in international negotiations on the environment, HT’s Jayashree Nandi brings her deep domain knowledge in a weekly column
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