Underestimated by India’s lawmakers and officials, the sweltering heat is slowing the country’s development, a study says.
Killer heatwaves are putting “unprecedented strains” on India’s agriculture, economy and public health, with climate change undermining the country’s long-term efforts to reduce poverty, inequality and disease, a new study shows.
Extreme heat has caused more than 24,000 deaths since 1992, increased air pollution and accelerated glacier melt in northern India, according to the study released on Wednesday by a team of scientists led by University of Cambridge’s Ramit Debnath.
India is now “facing a collision of multiple, cumulative climate hazards,” with extreme weather occurring almost every day from January to October last year, according to the study. Extreme heat puts 80 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people at risk, she added.
The peer-reviewed study says the full extent of the damage from India’s searing heat, which is causing deaths, disease, school closures and crop failures – as well as slowing the country’s development – is underestimated by the country’s lawmakers and officials.
Debnath told Reuters news agency that it is “very important to find out how we measure vulnerability to frequent extreme events” because the Indian government’s “Climate Vulnerability Index” is believed to underestimate the impact that longer, earlier and more frequent heatwaves will have on development.
Up to 90 percent of India’s total area is now in extreme heat hazard zones, and the country is not fully prepared, he warned.
“India has already done some things in terms of heat mitigation – they actually now recognize heatwaves as part of their disaster relief package,” he said. “But the pace of these plans needs to be optimized.”
“The adaptation measures that have been put on paper are quite extensive … and I think they have a very strong, solid plan, but this is how they are being implemented.”
The researchers also warned that heatwaves would weaken India’s efforts to meet its “Social Development Goals,” a list of 17 United Nations goals to tackle poverty, hunger, inequality and disease.
Ultimately, extreme heat could result in a 15 percent drop in “outdoor working capacity,” reducing the quality of life for up to 480 million people and costing 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, it said.
The falling productivity caused by extremely high temperatures could already cost India 5.4 percent of its GDP, according to the Climate Transparency Report published by environmental groups last year.
India is already experiencing extreme temperatures this year, with some states in the midst of another heatwave.
At least 11 people died and several others fell ill on Sunday while attending an outdoor event organized by the Maharashtra state government on the outskirts of Mumbai. Temperatures that day reached nearly 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) with high humidity, local media reported.
The eastern state of West Bengal closed all schools and colleges this week due to scorching heat. February of this year was the warmest month in India for 122 years.
The study “highlights that heat risk is an additional layer of risk that arises fairly rapidly,” said Aditya Valiathan Pillai, associate fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank Center for Policy Research.
Pillai recently examined India’s preparedness to respond to extremely hot weather.
The new research draws useful connections between increasing heat and its implications for India’s development, Pillai said, but the study’s data sets – which only look at temperatures in April last year – are limited.
He said it was nonetheless encouraging to see more research being published on the impact of heat on Indian people.
More and more states are burning up under extreme temperatures, and already heat-stressed regions are experiencing an increasing number of days with near-unbearable temperatures.
“For India as a whole, the threshold for adaptation to heat and other climate impacts will be reached in a few decades,” Pillai said. “For some, especially the poor, these limits have already been reached.”
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