Resilience to Climate Impacts
By 2050, India is projected to be one of the first countries where summer temperatures will surpass survivability limits. Ambient peak temperatures across parts of India have already started exceeding 50 degree Celsius in summers.
India is facing an escalating heat stress crisis, with recent summer months breaking numerous temperature records. This extreme heat impacts millions, with 90% of the country’s area now considered high-risk for heat-related dangers. The consequences are severe: increased mortality, widespread illnesses, economic disruptions, and environmental degradation.
Approximately 75% of India’s workforce, translating to around 380 million people, are engaged in heat-exposed labor, contributing to half of the nation’s GDP. As climate change intensifies, these conditions are expected to worsen, placing our informal workforce at very high-risk. Performing intensive labor in extreme heat can elevate body temperature to life-threatening levels, potentially leading to chronic fatalities. By 2030, heat stress is anticipated to cause a significant reduction in working hours in India, amounting to 5.8% or the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs.
Adaptation strategy and resilience measures for impacted communities need to be devised and deployed urgently in this decade
Adaptation for warming temperatures
Indian citizens currently face extreme heat danger as only 8% of households have access to air conditioning. While it is clear that strong climate change mitigation efforts are needed, it is also clear that extreme heat is already here and impacting people, especially vulnerable people in India and other developing countries in the tropics and the subtropics. We need to adapt to extreme heat fast.
At IECC, our efforts are currently concentrated on four key intervention areas to address extreme heat adaptation in India:
- Building a Heat Index tailored to Indian demographics
- Low-cost passive cooling shelters for the vulnerable communities
- Building a robust heat stress vulnerability assessment tool
- Creating solutions that withstand extreme temperature changes by testing them on future weather predictions
These priority areas reflect our commitment to creating sustainable, data-driven solutions that protect vulnerable populations and enhance India’s resilience to extreme heat.
