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No one knows exactly how many people are dying from extreme heat

When officials in Miami-Dade County wanted to figure out how many people there were dying from extreme heat, they turned to Christopher Ueijo. A geographer at Florida State University, Ueijo used temperature data and death records to determine that, between 2015 and 2019, heat killed an average of 34 people a year in the county who wouldn’t have died otherwise. His estimate was more than 10 times higher than the official figures: Over the same time period, Miami-Dade had classified just two deaths as heat-related. About a year later, Ueijo did a second analysis of the same data, this time factoring in the buildup to heat waves’ peaks to capture more of their early and cumulative health impacts. The newer findings, published in May, were wildly different: 600 heat deaths per year. “They are both peer-reviewed studies,” says Jane Gilbert, the chief heat officer for Miami-Dade County who commissioned the two analyses. “I asked [Ueijo] which one I should use and he said it’s somewhere between 34 and 600.” In the space between two, 34 and 600 lies the central challenge of counting fatalities from heat. Officially this year, there have been 63 heat deaths in Thailand, at least 143 in India, at least 172 in Mexico, and more than 1,300 in a single week during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. But unofficially, these numbers are a fraction of heat’s true toll. They are often the most obvious cases — those where doctors or coroners could confidently draw a line between heat and death — and are much less likely to account for fatalities in which temperatures played an indirect role. Some of this ambiguity has to do with the narrow way heat deaths are tracked, and some with the sheer number of health conditions exacerbated by rising temperatures. But the end result is the same: More people are dying from heat, while academics, medical professionals and government officials struggle to keep track. “Heat’s tricky,” says Este Geraghty, chief medical officer at ESRI, which produces mapping software used by researchers and government officials to track heat impacts. “It’s been called the silent killer, and for good reason.

India: Extreme weather fuels migration-related challenges

Weather-related disasters such as extreme heat, droughts and massive flooding are increasing in frequency and intensity in India. While the suffering they cause is immense and wide-reaching, it usually vulnerable, impoverished communities that suffer the most. A study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based public interest research and advocacy organization, tracked extreme weather events that occurred in India last year and found that the country, overall, experienced such events on 314 out of the 365 days. The CSE said 2,923 people died, almost two million hectares of crops were ruined, 80,000 homes were destroyed, and more than 92,000 animals were killed. But these numbers could be even higher because the data was not complete, according to the organization. The environmental crisis is also causing displacement and forcing people to migrate to already overcrowded megacities, Sunita Narain, head of the CSE, told DW. She said human-induced climate change is impoverishing farmers and others in the agricultural sector. "With increasing frequency of extreme weather events, people are losing the ability to cope and have no alternative but to migrate. The challenge is for all countries, particularly the rich, to take climate change targets seriously," Narain stressed. Migration challenge getting worse India already records some of the highest numbers of population displacements in the world every year. The vast majority of is triggered by disasters.

What is a People’s Biodiversity Register?

The People’s Biodiversity Register catalogues local flora, fauna, and traditional knowledge, ensuring ecological treasures are not forgotten. The objective of the PBR, beyond conservation of biological diversity, is sustainable use of its components and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of biological resources and knowledge. Despite its potential, the PBR’s effectiveness is hindered by verification issues, lack of awareness, and insufficient funding. In April 2024, the members of Bengaluru’s Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) decided to record a woodland near Manyata Tech Park in the city’s People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR). Located in the city centre, this half-acre land is thought to be more than a century old. It hosts a plethora of biodiversity, with more than 20 species of trees and many species of birds. With the city expanding and with unplanned urbanisation, documentation of ecologically rich spaces in the PBR is a step towards conservation and benefit sharing of traditional knowledge. What is a People’s Biodiversity Register? Mandated under the Biological Diversity (BD) Act, 2002, the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR) is a repository of flora and fauna species, local livelihoods and traditional knowledge of utilising medicinal herbs and plants. It is an informal inventory of information, a locally maintained database and a means to protect intellectual property rights. Even before it was mandated under the law, citizen scientists, NGOs and scientists began documenting biodiversity across India. The exercise, however, was more formalised after the Biological Diversity Act came into effect. The PBR is a document that contains comprehensive information on locally available bio-resources, including the landscape and demography of a particular area, according to the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), which is a statutory body established to carry out the provisions of the Biodiversity Act. The knowledge of local communities is at the heart of the PBR, in which local biodiversity is documented by the members of a BMC, students and teachers from educational institutions, volunteers from NGOs and interested citizens. The NBA at the centre, state biodiversity boards at the state level and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the local government level, undertake training of these groups for the documentation. Local communities prepare BMCs consist of a chairperson and not more than six persons (naturalists, environmentalists or conservationists) nominated by the local body, of whom not less than one third should be women and not less than 18% should belong to the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes. India accounts for eight percent of total global biodiversity, with an estimated 49,000 species of plants, of which 4,900 are endemic. At least 10% of India’s recorded wild flora and possibly more of its wild fauna are on the list of threatened species, according to a 2014 study by the CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur. The PBR acts as a repository to support the conservation of species and compare the current habitat with a previous one, thus providing an estimate of habitat loss. How has PBR raised awareness of biodiversity? The objective of the PBR, beyond conservation of biological diversity, is sustainable use of its components and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of biological resources and knowledge. The documentation helps in sustainable resources management and also supports claims of local ownership and knowledge of biodiversity. By documenting indigenous knowledge PBRs also prevent attempts to ignore or erase such knowledge. Illustrating an example, Jigar Solanki, a PhD student and a volunteer who contributed to PBRs for two villages in Maharashtra’s Pune district said, “For centuries, Indians have been using turmeric for healing wounds. Foreign companies claimed to have discovered its medicinal benefits and monetised turmeric. If turmeric and its benefits were documented in a PBR, the concerned community or India would perhaps have the rights to that knowledge.” While the key objective of the BD Act is to safeguard traditional knowledge and prevent biopiracy, poor documentation is a challenge. “When the PBR itself is hurriedly documented, how can you establish rights?” remarked Sangita Mitra, who was a consultant to the NBA, adding that many Indian states followed the wrong formats and documented PBR in less than six months only to adhere to the NGT’s direction. In Udupi’s Mala village, the residents had not realised the total value of non-timber forest produce being collected annually from their village was half a million rupees. Realisation of this large volume triggered an interest in sustainable use through mechanisms such as establishment of a joint forest management committee, wrote Madhav Gadgil, who laid the foundation for PBR in the 1990s. In Bengaluru, besides a plethora of civic initiatives for restoration, the biodiversity of Bengaluru’s Madiwala lake was also recorded in the PBR a year ago. “Home to several native tree species, the lake is recorded as a potential conservation site in the PBR. It definitely played a role in sparking citizen interest in conserving the water body,” said Akshay Heblikar, Director of EcoWatch India and one of the members of Bengaluru’s BMC. How can PBR be employed to uplift economies? Considering its potential, the PBR could be used as a base document in the legal arena as evidence of prior knowledge and in the upliftment of indigenous people who possess traditional knowledge. However, this idea largely remains theoretical, said R.J. Ranjit Daniels, who was one of the experts to have prepared the methodology in the early 1990s. “There is not a single instance in India where PBR was used as an authentic document to fight against biopiracy and intellectual property.” In Tamil Nadu’s Maduranthakam, a group of medicinal experts have been collecting common nettle, a medicinal plant that is used in siddha medicine to treat arthritis. “Local residents also shared their knowledge about the plant with the experts. They got no monetary benefit for possessing the resource and knowledge. In fact, they are not even aware that they can benefit economically,” said a botanist who wishes to remain anonymous. PBR mandates a portion of profits to be shared with the traditional knowledge holders through Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). As per the Guidelines on Access to Biological Resources and Associated Knowledge and Benefits Sharing Regulations, 2014, released by MoEFCC, any person who intends to have access to biological resources harvested by Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC)/ Forest dweller/ Tribal cultivator/ Gram Sabha, shall apply to the NBA or to the State Biodiversity Board (SBB). Any of these agencies shall enter into a benefit sharing agreement with the applicant for commercial utilisation. In 2018 the NBA took an initiative of writing to the biopharmaceutical companies to get into the access and benefit sharing with the Irula Snake Catchers Industrial Cooperative Society that extracts snake venom. A report from the Centre for Science and Environment mentioned that “only one company had agreed to pay, but even that promise remained unfulfilled.” India is one of the few countries that had legislated a framework to deal with ABS in 2002. However, the implementation experience of ABS has been uneven and complex in India, writes former NBA chairperson, Balakrishna Pisupati, in a 2015 paper. In 2023 India amended the BD act granting exemption to AYUSH practitioners and traditional knowledge holders from paying Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). What are the gaps in implementing PBR for conservation? Lack of funding, low awareness at various levels and the lethargic attitude of the nodal agencies are the major gaps in implementing PBR for conservation. Ashwini Kumar Choubey, former Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Environment, Forest and Climate Change, in the national campaign for updation and verification of PBR in Goa in May 2023, informed that a total of 2,67,608 People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBR) have been prepared in the country with Andhra Pradesh topping the states. However, only 11,951 of them have been verified. Many of the PBRs are also not regularly updated. Bengaluru, for example, created a PBR in 2009 and has not updated it ever since. “None of the nodal agencies – forest department or the state biodiversity boards have the expertise to verify the documented PBRs. After the National Green Tribunal (NGT) mandated completion of the registers by 2020, every state submitted thousands of them. However, it remains a tremendous task to cross verify them,” said Rahul Mungikar, Member, Expert Committee of NBA.

NDTV Infrashakti Awards: Honouring Milestones In India’s Infrastructure Growth Story

The NDTV Infrashakti Awards 2024 celebrated India’s remarkable infrastructure growth story by honouring extraordinary initiatives. Speaking at the event, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, revealed that India would launch the first phase of a GPS and satellite-based toll system in the next three months, before implementing it nationwide. During a fireside chat with NDTV’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Sanjay Pugalia, Mr Gadkari spoke at length about the importance of tackling pollution in India by promoting non-polluting sources for personal and public transportation. The NDTV Infrashakti Awards were created to inspire innovation and excellence across the country by recognising individual and institutional initiatives. A significant component of the Infrashakti campaign, the awards focused on celebrating stories behind India’s infrastructural advancements. From engineering marvels to sustainable urban planning, the awards honoured exceptional contributions that defined the nation’s growth. Mr Gadkari spoke on the importance of tackling pollution in India by promoting non-polluting sources for personal and public transportation. The Union Minister highlighted the government’s initiatives, including the promotion of electric scooters, cars, and buses, as well as the need to expand the use of bio and alternative fuels. Mr Gadkari mentioned ongoing projects like electric trolley buses in Nagpur and the adoption of hybrid engines in construction equipment, which operate on diesel and CNG. He also stressed how the potential of tractors powered by ethanol, methanol, CNG, and electricity was set to revolutionise the agricultural sector, benefiting farmers significantly within the next year. “Green hydrogen is the future,” Mr Gadkari stated, envisioning India as an exporter of energy rather than an importer. Mr Pranav Adani, Managing Director (Agro, Oil and Gas) and Director, Adani Enterprises, while delivering the keynote address spoke on the transformative power of infrastructure, mentioning “Human history, whether ancient or modern, shows us that infrastructure is the fundamental key to all the progress.” The NDTV Infrashakti Awards 2024 comprised six jury-selected categories and one popular choice/viewers’ choice category. The categories include Rural Infra Pioneer, Renewable Energy Star, Water Saviour, Urban Infra Hero, Infra Visionary, and Transport Trailblazer. The public can also vote for the Inclusive Infrastructure category in the popular choice award, which allows everyone to make their voice heard. The awards were judged by an esteemed panel of five jury members – Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister; Renu Sud Karnad, Chairperson, GSK Pharmaceuticals and former MD and current non-executive Director of HDFC Bank Ltd; Dilip Cherian, image guru specialising in Litigation Landscaping and Policy Analyst; Gul Panag, actor, sustainability advocate, and social activist; and Professor G Raghuram, Professor Emeritus at Gujarat Maritime University. The stellar guest list also included Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Puri as the Guest of Honour. The minister, in conversation with NDTV’s Marya Shakil, laid emphasis on India’s growing focus and shift to green energy, while adding, “No matter which way you look at it, if you look at green energy, the transition, biofuels… look at the 15 per cent transition we have done. We did 15 per cent biofuel blending. And we are solving the problem in agriculture,” With this Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri presented NDTV Infrashakti Lifetime Achievement Award for Connecting India to E Sreedharan, the “Metro Man” of India. Anuj Dayal, Executive Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, accepted the award on Mr Sreedharan’s behalf. The Infrashakti Award for Rural Infra Pioneer went to the CEO of DeHaat, Shashank Kumar, for his vision and commitment to leveraging technology for rural development, which has not only improved infrastructure but also revitalized rural economies, creating a ripple effect of socio-economic benefits. The NDTV Infrashakti Award for Inclusive Infrastructure was awarded to Swarga Foundation. Swarnalatha J, on receiving the award, remarked, “People call me by different names. I am here to tell the whole world that I am not just special because of my disability but because of my ability to turn every adversity into an opportunity.” Arun Krishnamurthy, recipient of the NDTV Infrashakti Award for Water Saviour, has been a beacon of hope in water conservation and management. His dedication to environmental stewardship underscores the critical importance of water conservation in India’s development agenda. The NDTV Infrashakti Award for Renewable Energy Star went to Pankaj Kumar and Siddhant Agarwal of Quant Solar. Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri also presented NDTV Infrashakti Award for Infrastructure Financier to the State Bank of India. The Infrashakti Award for Transport Trailblazer was given to Afcons Infrastructure for innovative solutions, significant contributions to the transport infrastructure sector and for setting new benchmarks in project execution and management. Sudhanshu Mani was honoured as Infrashakti Infravisionary, for his visionary initiatives that have not only addressed critical challenges but have also propelled India towards sustainable and inclusive growth. Sandeep Patel, Founder of Nepra, received the Urban Infra Hero Award for his instrumental leadership in pioneering projects that enhance liveability and resilience in urban centres, setting a new standard for integrated urban development. Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director of Research and Advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), highlighted the urgency of addressing climate change. “If there’s a takeaway from the summer we just had, with its persistent heatwaves and unprecedented floods, it’s that climate change is real and constant. We can’t keep blaming climate change; we must ensure our infrastructure development is sustainable and mitigates the impact.” The NDTV Infrashakti Awards 2024 showcased the pulse of a vibrant country by recognising and celebrating the efforts of those transforming India’s infrastructure landscape. By acknowledging infrastructure development, which has the power to change lives and connect communities, these awards serve as guiding beacon for a Viksit Bharat. The NDTV Infrashakti Awards aim to inspire further innovation and excellence in the sector, honouring the visionaries driving India’s growth story and contributing vastly to a sustainable future.

No One Knows Exactly How Many People Are Dying From Extreme Heat

When officials in Miami-Dade County wanted to figure out how many people there were dying from extreme heat, they turned to Christopher Ueijo. A geographer at Florida State University, Ueijo used temperature data and death records to determine that, between 2015 and 2019, heat killed an average of 34 people a year in the county who wouldn’t have died otherwise. His estimate was more than 10 times higher than the official figures: Over the same time period, Miami-Dade had classified just two deaths as heat-related. About a year later, Ueijo did a second analysis of the same data, this time factoring in the buildup to heat waves’ peaks to capture more of their early and cumulative health impacts. The newer findings, published in May, were wildly different: 600 heat deaths per year. “They are both peer-reviewed studies,” says Jane Gilbert, the chief heat officer for Miami-Dade County who commissioned the two analyses. “I asked [Ueijo] which one I should use and he said it’s somewhere between 34 and 600.” In the space between two, 34 and 600 lies the central challenge of counting fatalities from heat. Officially this year, there have been 63 heat deaths in Thailand, at least 143 in India, at least 172 in Mexico, and more than 1,300 in a single week during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. But unofficially, these numbers are a fraction of heat’s true toll. They are often the most obvious cases — those where doctors or coroners could confidently draw a line between heat and death — and are much less likely to account for fatalities in which temperatures played an indirect role. Some of this ambiguity has to do with the narrow way heat deaths are tracked, and some with the sheer number of health conditions exacerbated by rising temperatures. But the end result is the same: More people are dying from heat, while academics, medical professionals and government officials struggle to keep track. “Heat’s tricky,” says Este Geraghty, chief medical officer at Esri, which produces mapping software used by researchers and government officials to track heat impacts. “It’s been called the silent killer, and for good reason.” The most common way to track heat deaths is by tallying up fatalities where heat has been officially identified as the main or contributing cause of death. This is Gregory Hess’s job. As chief medical examiner for Arizona’s Pima County, he and his team record the cause of death for many of the people who expire in one of the hottest parts of America. Last year, Pima County’s Tucson experienced nearly 90 days where temperatures hit at least 100F (38C). “So let’s say somebody dies because they shot themselves in the head,” Hess says. “Why the person died is pretty easy to keep track of. That doesn’t require a lot of sophistication.” Heat is different. The most direct version of a heat death comes from hyperthermia, two extreme forms of which are heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Symptoms of heat exhaustion include dizziness, thirst, nausea and weakness, while heat stroke symptoms may include confusion and lost consciousness. Heat stroke usually sets in when core body temperature reaches roughly 104F (40C). The body simply can’t handle such high temperatures for long, and will start failing without rapid cooling and other treatment. But there are limits to identifying hyperthermia. Not everyone who gets heat-sick is able to seek help. If someone dies alone at home or overnight in a park, core temperature will likely have decreased by the time their body is found, says Sarah Henderson, director of British Columbia’s Centre for Disease Control. In other words, the most obvious sign of heat stroke is erased. Many official heat death records rely almost entirely on identifiable heat stroke. In Japan, it’s the only type of heat death tracked by the country’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks heat deaths by compiling information from death certificates, where reported heat deaths are often tied to heat stroke. The data is limited to US citizens, and “there tends to be a one-year lag before complete data are available,” says CDC press officer Sharleta Stamps. Heat stroke also makes up the vast majority of heat deaths tracked by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, though local hospital systems can also report heat-related deaths. Combined, the local numbers are often higher than the official national figures. India has “a fairly high threshold for what can be classified as a heat-related death,” says Bhargav Krishna, a fellow at the research organization Sustainable Futures Collaborative. The designation usually requires a recorded high body temperature and extensive documentation on a patient’s family and medical history. Impacted families may be “eligible for certain compensation,” Krishna says, which can result in physicians being “more conservative in declaring a heat death.” Heat stroke fatalities are the most straightforward kind of heat death. Another, bigger category is what Hess refers to as “heat-contributed deaths.” Imagine somebody has a heart attack on a hot day, says Geraghty at Esri: “Did they have it because it was hot or it just happened to be a death on hot day?” The answer isn’t always easy to figure out, and many places don’t have the resources or inclination to try. The human body has two primary tools to avoid overheating: sweating, which releases heat through evaporation, and pumping the heart faster to increase blood circulation and transfer heat to the skin. Any group unable to avoid the heat — athletes, the homeless, low-income families, and outdoor workers — is increasingly vulnerable as temperatures climb. So too are people whose bodies can’t easily adjust, including infants and young children, pregnant people, older people, and those with certain health issues. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease and diabetes, for example, can limit the body’s ability to keep cool, as can some of the medicines used to treat them. But when people suffering from those conditions die in hot weather, the disease is “more likely listed as cause of death than heat,” says Ueijo. “Covid is a good analogy,” says Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington. Due to limited testing and investigation, many likely Covid-linked deaths were attributed only to comorbidities such as hypertension or diabetes. The virus’s long tail means it also factors into deaths from weakened organs and health complications well after a person stops testing positive. US-CLIMATE-SCIENCE-HEAT-ROBOT A software program shows the configured surface temperatures of ANDI.Photographer: Patrick T.Fallon/AFP/Getty Images Even for the physically healthy, low levels of heat illness can impact concentration, balance and energy levels. That increases the risks for anyone impaired by drug or alcohol use, and for those suffering from mental illness. “Why do we get so many more unhoused people dying in parks with drugs in July than we do in December? It’s because of the heat,” Hess says. To accurately determine heat-contributed deaths, officials at every step of the process must be versed in heat’s impacts and willing to figure out whether they played a role. At minimum, there needs to be an official record of the death — not a given in rural parts of India, for example — that lists heat as a contributing factor. But if governments are only reporting heat deaths based on death certificates and physical examinations of dead bodies, “then it’s highly likely to be an underestimation,” says Eunice Lo, a research fellow in climate change and health at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment. While Pima County has always tracked some heat deaths, Hess says they weren’t able to investigate a wider swath of cases until he secured enough funding to hire an epidemiologist in 2022. Since last year, Pima County has been sharing its heat death findings online and updating them monthly. According to that data, the county has identified 24 heat-related deaths in 2024 so far. “I’m sure it’s still an undercount,” Hess says. “I think we’re doing it as well as we can with how the system works, and as well as we can means that’s going to be better than a lot of other places. But there’s going to be those deaths that slip through the cracks.” Hess’s inspiration is neighboring Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and long a national leader in tracking heat deaths. During hot months, the county publishes weekly reports on known and suspected heat fatalities. For the first half of the year, Maricopa County reported 13 confirmed heat-related deaths and 162 more under investigation. In 2023, there were 645 heat-related deaths. To get around how infrequently heat is listed as an official cause of death, a growing number of academics and public health officials are applying “excess mortality” studies to heat deaths. While these analyses don’t normally help with real-time reporting, they use the same method that public health experts do to pin down how many people are dying directly or indirectly from Covid-19. To complete an excess mortality study, experts apply statistical modeling to a location’s meteorological data and official death records over a certain period of time, whether that’s a week-long heat wave, a single summer, or multiple years. The aim is to “find the relationship between temperature and people dying,” Lo says. One such study, published in 2021, found that heat caused roughly 489,000 excess deaths a year globally between 2000 and 2019. After a heat wave in 2003 caused more than 70,000 deaths across Europe — a number determined by an excess mortality study — the UK upped its focus on heat risk. Since 2016, the country’s Health Security Agency has calculated excess heat mortality for every summer. In 2023, officials estimated there were nearly 2,300 excess heat deaths over five hot periods. “Even having a heat warning system came about because of the 2003 heat wave,” Lo says. In Europe, heat contributed to some 61,000 deaths in the summer of 2022, according to an excess heat mortality study published last year. One 2020 study looking at 297 US counties — nearly two-thirds of the population — found that there were about 5,600 excess heat deaths annually between 1997 and 2006, double the highest heat death toll found using death certificates. Excess mortality studies are only feasible in regions that keep comprehensive records on all causes of death over time — a prerequisite that’s easier to meet in the UK, US and Europe than it is in Africa, India or Southeast Asia. “For many countries, we simply don’t have digitized death records or registrations,” Lo says. “For some places, like in Southeast Asia, we’ll have some data but it’s only in the last few years. Whereas in Europe, you can have 40 years of data.” The studies also leave plenty of uncertainy, as Ueijo’s team found with their analyses of Miami-Dade County. The disparate findings speak to “the lack of full understanding of the excess morbidity and mortality related to heat exposure and the need for improved data collection and more research,” Gilbert says. Extreme heat isn’t going anywhere. Rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have already warmed the planet by about 1.2C compared to the pre-industrial era, and heat waves are becoming more frequent and more intense. That trajectory makes it increasingly critical to appreciate heat as a lethal threat. “All those deaths are potentially preventable,” Ebi says. “Yet people don’t really think of heat as the killer it can be.” Greater awareness could also keep the heat from becoming even more deadly. People can get in the habit of increasing hydration, dressing for high temperatures and shifting their daily routines to avoid the hottest part of the day. Governments can increase access to cooling at home and in public, plant trees to add shade, and implement other solutions geared at heat adaptation. But the first step is understanding the scope of the problem. “You need to know these numbers so that you can design your infrastructure and policy accordingly,” says Avikal Somvanshi, head of the Urban Lab at India’s Centre for Science and Environment. Otherwise, other countries might think, “Oh, India is a country of 1.4 billion people and only 300 people died of heat stroke last year.”

No One Knows Exactly How Many People Are Dying From Extreme Heat

But the first step is understanding the scope of the problem. “You need to know these numbers so that you can design your infrastructure and policy accordingly,” says Avikal Somvanshi, head of the Urban Lab at India’s Centre for Science and Environment. Otherwise, other countries might think, “Oh, India is a country of 1.4 billion people and only 300 people died of heat stroke last year.”

How India’s climate plans are falling short

Even as general elections in India continued through the months of April to June, heat wave to severe heat wave conditions prevailed in northern and western India and in parts of eastern India. Many of these areas started experiencing heat waves around May 18. With the onset of the south-west monsoon, India finds itself in an odd extreme weather scenario: On the one hand, people have died of heat and on the other, many states particularly in the north fear floods and find themselves ill equipped to tackle them. On June 28, for instance, the national capital region of Delhi received 235.5 mm of rainfall, the highest-single day amount in June in 88 years. IndiaSpend spoke to experts and activists to understand the changes and developments in the country’s climate, and its environmental regulatory regime over the past decade, and where its policies fell short. This is crucial for the new government and for climate action as the next few years are critical for the Paris targets. Climate change action framework in India India’s climate action plans consist of two elements: adaptation and mitigation. While mitigation has found a lot of focus, not enough attention has gone into planning adaptation, as IndiaSpend reported in December 2023. In terms of commitments and goals, there is a National Action Plan on Climate Change and its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution. India also has a host of climate goals: To put forward and further propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation. To adopt a climate friendly and a cleaner path than the one followed hitherto by others at corresponding level of economic development. To reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33-35% by 2030 from 2005 level. To achieve about 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030 with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance including from Green Climate Fund (GCF). To create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030. To better adapt to climate change by enhancing investments in development programmes in sectors vulnerable to climate change, particularly agriculture, water resources, Himalayan region, coastal regions, health and disaster management. To mobilize domestic and new & additional funds from developed countries to implement the above mitigation and adaptation actions in view of the resource required and the resource gap. To build capacities, create domestic framework and international architecture for quick diffusion of cutting-edge climate technology in India and for joint collaborative R&D for such future technologies. India updated its INDC targets in August 2022, seven years since it first submitted its targets to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The update included two new targets: To reduce the emissions intensity of the country’s GDP by 45% by 2030 as against the earlier target of 33-35% (compared to 2005 emission levels). (Emissions intensity is the emission rate of a given pollutant relative to the intensity of a specific activity. For instance, grams of carbon dioxide released per megajoule of energy produced) To achieve about 50% cumulative installed electric power capacity from non-fossil fuel sources (including nuclear) by 2030, as against the 40% targeted earlier. About a year later, in December 2023, it said that it had achieved the two targets originally mentioned in the INDCs, well ahead of deadline: To reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33-35% by 2030 from 2005 level; and To achieve about 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030 (As on October 31, 2023, the cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources was 186.46 MW; this was 43.81% of the total cumulative electric power installed capacity.) Despite these components as well as many state-level action plans, India’s climate action policies are often driven by “opportunism”, as argued in a 2021 paper by Navroz Dubash, leading climate researcher and Chair of the Advisory Council of the Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC), an independent research and action group based in Delhi, and others. “In my opinion, climate change became a pretext for the government to bring businesses, whether in Gujarat or the rest of India,” notes Alok Shukla, member of the convenor collective of Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan and winner of the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize. Shukla points to the gaps in the targets being achieved on paper and how these transpired for people on the ground. Stress on afforestation India’s target on achieving an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 by 2030 has driven its policies on forests and land use, and has meant the implementation of policies around afforestation. India’s third biennial report submitted to the UNFCCC in February 2021 said that the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sequestered 330.76 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2, which is about 15% of India’s total CO2 emissions from all sectors in 2016. It also said the forest and tree cover had increased to 807,276 sq km in 2019 from 802,088 sq km in 2017. The net change in the carbon stocks of forests was +42.6 Mt as per the report, which cites Forest Survey of India (FSI) data. Several experts and the UNFCCC have questioned FSI’s methodology for calculating forest cover. Increase in forest cover has happened outside the area classified in land records as "forests", a 2022 report by the Centre for Science and Environment says. “It has also happened mainly in forests that are defined as "open"—with canopy cover between 10-40%. This shows that forests are growing because people are planting trees on their individual lands, including plantations of rubber, coconut or eucalyptus, all non-forest species, as there are huge restrictions on planting and cutting trees that are listed in the Indian Forest Act.” Further, a June 2020 report by a subcommittee of the Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance to assess the financial requirements to meet INDCs noted that it was unclear whether improving the density of existing forests would add up to the target. The report concluded that, as the target uses the word “additional” twice, it “may have to be achieved only by adding areas to the existing forest and tree cover majorly by afforestation outside forest area, thus by creating new forests and from sequestration of carbon in the increased extent of trees outside forest (TOF) comprising urban forestry, agroforestry, avenue plantation”. Analysing the financial instruments to meet the forestry targets, the report said that the focus should be on forest ecosystem instead of plantation, as “[i]t is possible that injudicious plantation may end up exacerbating the environment and ecosystems”. Commitments versus coal mining India has made ambitious commitments to increase its forest cover, while simultaneously giving a push for coal mining as part of its Covid-19 economic recovery package. In its Long Term Strategy for Low Carbon Development document (which provides a sector-wise breakdown of initiatives) submitted at CoP27, India said that it will continue to use coal. A Climate Action Tracker summary evaluated India’s status as “Poor” based on the observation that “the level of information provided is extremely limited with no emissions pathway to demonstrate how India will reach net zero by 2070. It remains unclear as to whether India’s net zero by 2070 target covers all greenhouse gas emissions, or just CO2.” As per a response in the Lok Sabha in 2022, the government said that India has already achieved 1.97 billion tonnes of additional carbon sink as compared to the base year of 2005. The remaining, it said, could be achieved by increasing forest and tree cover through programmes such as Green India Mission, National Afforestation Programme, Compensatory Afforestation Funds under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), afforestation activities under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Green Highway Policy 2015, Policy for Enhancement of Urban Greens, National Agro-forestry Policy and Sub-mission on Agro-forestry, National Bamboo Mission and National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture. India did not sign the Glasgow declaration on forests and land use that aimed to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030 on the grounds of mention of “trade as an area” in the declaration, the government told Parliament. The declaration said that the parties will strengthen efforts to, among other things, “Facilitate trade and development policies, internationally and domestically, that promote sustainable development, and sustainable commodity production and consumption, that work to countries’ mutual benefit, and that do not drive deforestation and land degradation.” How does India expect to achieve net zero by 2070 if it continues opening up new coal mines even when it has already extracted the desired quantity of coal, asks Alok Shukla. “The policies that the [National Democratic Alliance] government brought in the last 10 years are quite opposite to the commitments made by it at the global stage,” Shukla says. Shukla, who has led the Hasdeo Bachao movement along with thousands of Adivasis and forest communities, says that coal mining allocations were increased in the past few years. Hasdeo Arand is a long stretch of intact forest land in Chhattisgarh. During the coal mining auctions, as many as 21 sites were auctioned from Chhattisgarh, most of them in the Hasdeo Arand forests, against which the movement has been mobilising. “Our needs can be fulfilled by 1.3-1.5 billion tonnes of coal, so why did the government auction so many mines?,” Shukla asks. “There has been no assessment of the areas in which mining is permissible without harm.” IndiaSpend reached out to Ramesh Pandey, the Inspector General of Forests, on the steps being taken to protect forests in Hasdeo. We will update this story when we receive a response. Government policies have prioritised the interests of the private sector, says Shukla. The Economic Survey 2022-23 pointed out that coal demand is estimated to be around 1.3-1.5 billion tonnes by 2030. It further estimated that demand will continue to peak between 2030 and 2035, and that electricity generated by coal-based power plants increased by 10% between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Renewable energy policies not kosher, say experts India’s policies on renewable energy, especially its push for large hydropower projects to generate renewable energy, have been criticised by experts on account of a lack of consideration for communities residing on these lands, as well as for financial and scientific reasons. In 2019, India said that large hydropower projects (HEPs with a capacity of 25 MW) were central to its renewable energy transition. A slew of measures was approved, including for example that for the hydro-power projects commissioned after March 8, 2019, the energy will be considered part of the Renewable Purchase Obligation. States will have a mandate to purchase a share of renewable energy, and as part of it, to purchase energy generated from large hydro power projects. “Far from being cost-effective, these have ended up causing distress to people, especially communities living around river basins,” said Shripad Dharmadhikary of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, a Pune-based centre that monitors and analyses water and energy issues. “There is no cumulative impact assessment of these projects, though some of them are in very close proximity, becoming the reason for environmental disasters.” Experts have, however, pointed out that hydropower dams pollute and also precipitate natural disasters, as IndiaSpend reported in November 2021. Large hydropower projects often ignore the complexity and risk of construction on the local terrain, geology, hydrology and ecology. This negligence impacts local communities significantly during or after construction, several organisations from Himachal Pradesh said, in a submission made on May 14 to the state government. “Recently, in Barot valley of Kangra district, the underground forebay near the 25 MW Lambadag Hydropower Project, constructed by Megha Engineering Infrastructure Limited, experienced rapid water leakage, causing penstock pipe to burst, causing extensive damage to fields, shops and homes in Multhan due to water flow,” the organisations said in a press note. Emphasis on creating land banks Under different names, the Indian government brought policies to create land inventories. In 2013, The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (also known as LARR, 2013) proposed the creation of land banks and said that if a land acquired for development purposes was not utilised for more than five years, it was to be returned to the landowner or title holder. However, seldom is the land returned to the landowners, who are Adivasi and forest community members, Shukla says. In 2022, through the Forest Conservation Rules, the government again emphasised on the creation of land banks--this time for compensatory afforestation. The rules diminished powers of the Gram Sabha, even though an earlier Act, the Forest Rights Act, 2006 recognises that Gram Sabhas need to approve the usage of forest land that they may be using. Here the assumption is that the government already has a land and that all the land in it has already been reconciled, said Arpitha Kodiveri, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vassar College, who has previously studied environmental law. The latest attempt is the Green Credit programme, whose second objective says: “Registration of land on the web portal to build a land bank which can be offered for plantation activities. This land inventory will be available to individuals/entities for voluntary plantation, plantation under CSR and for plantation under Accredited Compensatory Afforestation.” In states like Jharkhand, land banks have been created as part of a push for industries. “Land banks and compensatory afforestation have both been undertaken on community and common lands. For instance, in Hasdeo, for the forest land diversion for Parsa coal block, common lands in Surajpur zilla (district) will be used for compensatory afforestation. People are already using these lands,” says Shukla. IndiaSpend wrote to the Ministry of Environment to ask if afforestation has indeed taken place on tribal lands. We will update this story when we receive a response. Climate harm in the name of climate action? The United Nations on its website calls greenwashing a significant obstacle to tackling climate change. “By misleading the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is, greenwashing promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action.” The definition enlisted various situations in which greenwashing may take place, including claims of being on track to reduce a company’s polluting emissions to net zero without a credible plan, being purposely vague or non-specific about a company’s operations or materials used, and applying misleading labels such as “green”. Around the time India said it met two of its INDC goals ahead of time, it was also enacting laws that weakened protection. “Despite consistent struggles from forest-based communities, laws brought in the recent past have only led to the weakening of the environmental and climate protection regime and the hard won rights of communities,” Shukla says. Prominent amongst these was the Forest Conservation Amendment Act. On July 26, 2023, the Lok Sabha passed a bill that amended the country’s Forest Conservation Act, 1980. This happened despite vocal protests by several environmental and rights groups. The FCA was legislated to regulate the use of forest land for development purposes such as mining, industries, dams etc. The preamble of the existing Act was amended to add “ ...the importance of forests is to be realised to enable the achievement of national targets of Net Zero Emission by 2070 and maintain or enhance the forest carbon stocks through ecologically balanced sustainable development”. The amendments have made the provisions applicable on lands notified as forests under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or in government records after the 1980 Act came into effect. “The definition of forests themselves has been changed as per this law, which is so dangerous,” Shukla says. “Why have there been no discussions? Despite protests, the 2023 amendment to the FCA could not become a political issue, and the opposition also failed to take it up.” The Act also removed the need for forest clearance for certain types of forest land such as lands that lie within 100 km of India’s international border for projects of strategic relevance (such as those related to national security), public utilities, roadside amenities and public roads leading to habitation. It specifies activities that can be carried out on such lands, such as the establishment of zoos and check posts. “With the amendments to the FCA, the government gave concessions to build linear projects, road projects etc. So it’s not about conservation, only business,” says Govabhai Rathore of the Gujarat Adivasi Mahasabha. “For instance, if the Delhi-Mumbai corridor is built, entire districts will be gone in Gujarat. The entire tribal belt will be wiped off.” IndiaSpend reached out to Ramesh Pandey of the environment ministry asking how necessary checks and balances will be ensured. We will update this story when we receive a response. Are changes causing distress? There are three ways to understand the changes in the environment law regime in the last decade, says environmental and policy researcher Kanchi Kohli, most of which responded to the frameworks drawn up by committees in commitments made by the ruling party’s election manifestos in 2014 and 2019. “First is the assumption that loosening the pre-approval environment regulatory ‘burden’ on the private sector will incentivize economic investment and enable the safe passage of specific projects,” she said. “Second, relaxing the post-approval compliances will encourage companies to adopt the utmost good faith principle whereby business practice will adopt better environmental practices.” Kohli added that both these assumptions have seriously fallen short on the presumed outcomes. In January this year, the Supreme Court stayed two Union government orders of July 2021 and January 2022 granting ex-post facto clearance for projects across sectors without prior environmental approval as mandated under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification of 2006. Kohli said that the third way to understand changes in regulations was the aligning of national laws towards achieving net zero carbon emissions, which has relied heavily on tree plantation-based carbon offsets to balance India’s carbon emissions footprint. “This has resulted in new ecological and rights-based justice questions for which India’s present environment regulation falls short on both acknowledgment and vision,” she said. Amendments without public notice A 2023 report published by the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law found that the EIA notification of 2006 has been amended over 50 times since its inception and that 70% of these amendments have been passed without due public notice. “The pandemic saw an uptick in such amendments when the pretext of ‘public interest’ was used to bypass the mandatory step of prior public notice of upcoming amendments,” said Meenakshi Kapoor, one of the authors of the report. “Similarly, since 2017, existing coal mines have been allowed to increase their capacity without public hearings provided they demonstrated ‘satisfactory’ compliance. What started with coal mines has now been extended to all projects exhibiting ‘satisfactory compliance’.” Contrary to the current government’s self-professed liking for standardisation and unambiguity in environmental governance, neither ‘public interest’ nor ‘satisfactory compliance’ have been spelled out, Kapoor says. “Oftentimes, public hearing exemptions have been granted to mines with poor environmental compliance," she said. The way forward “India urgently needs a unified, robust climate law that not only prevents greenwashing but also enforces genuine environmental progress to make our economy and society sustainable and resilient,” says Harjeet Singh, Global Engagement Director at the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative and co-founder of Satat Sampada, a social enterprise promoting environmental solutions. Singh said that with the introduction of the new Carbon Credit Trading Scheme and Green Credit Programme, there was a significant danger that, without stringent and transparent enforcement, these initiatives could merely serve corporate interests, painting a deceptive veneer of environmental responsibility while continuing to exacerbate the climate crisis. Singh feels that India’s current landscape of climate change legislation reveals a troubling paradox. “While we see an array of regulations and initiatives aimed at environmental protection, a comprehensive policy framework that effectively tackles the full scale of the climate emergency remains conspicuously absent,” he said. “There has also been a pattern of diluted regulations, particularly evident in the Environmental Impact Assessments, which risks turning green policies into greenwashing tools,” he added. “While climate change is yet to become a political issue in India, the consciousness around climate change is growing because of a number of extreme weather events,” Shukla points out. “It is no longer possible to ignore climate change, and these events are having a bearing on the livelihoods of people.”

A matter of life and death

We know that climate change impacts weather, which, in turn, devastates lives and livelihoods. But what we don’t discuss enough is how these extremes in weather impact human health. In this season of despair, when temperatures spiralled beyond endurance, we learnt how heat could kill. We also learnt how the rise in minimum temperatures — the night-time heat — could be a cause of deaths. It is critical that we join the dots between what seems like a faraway crisis of a changing climate and what it can do to our health. This year, the world has seen scorching temperatures. And this heat has taken lives — in Delhi till the end of June, it was estimated that some 270 people had died because of extreme heat. But I repeat this number with caution. We don’t know how many died of heat alone, because heat is an exacerbating factor to existing health ailments like cardiovascular or kidney diseases. Many more may have succumbed to heat this summer, but doctors would have written it down to underlying conditions. We know that the most vulnerable are those exposed to heat because of their work conditions — from construction workers to farmers. It is also the poor who do not have access to electricity and cannot use appliances to cool themselves. But their deaths are not recorded as ones owing to heat stress; only that they are either poor or old, and died of “unknown causes”. Heat is not listed among the notified diseases of the country, which also means that it is not required to be recorded or to provide information for further action. So, we must recognise that we know little about the health burden and deaths because of the ferocious burn we saw of late. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp However, research is now pointing to the dynamics of deadly heat. First, it is being understood that the rise in night-time heat is the cause of the maximum number of mortalities. A 2022 paper in The Lancet, a British medical journal, found “that the relative mortality risk on days with hot nights could be 50 per cent higher than on days with cooler night temperatures”. The reason, the authors explain, is that heat affects sleep and does not allow the body to repair itself; and this, in turn, exacerbates the health stress. Second, we know that evaporation is the method for our bodies to cool; but this becomes ineffective when humidity increases beyond 75 per cent — also known as the wet bulb phenomenon. So, thermal discomfort, not just temperatures, is what needs to be understood. The worry is that we are seeing an increasing trend in all three killer factors, particularly in urban centres. Here, temperatures are rising beyond human tolerance; humidity is increasing; and so is the night-time heat. A recent report by my colleagues at the Centre for Science and Environment tracked heat trends across major cities of India and found that ambient air temperatures were increasing in cities, as against the average for the country. Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai are seeing a more humid summer — 5-10 per cent increase in the last decade (2014-23) as compared to2001-10. Only Bengaluru has not shown any increase in summer humidity level and this needs further investigation. Then, the report finds that cities are not cooling at night — across all climatic zones. It notes that during summers of the decade of 2001-10, night temperatures dropped 6.2°-13.2° Celsius (across cities) from the day-time peak. But in the last 10 summers, this difference between day and night temperatures (maximum and minimum) is decreasing. Hyderabad is down by 13 per cent; Delhi by 9 per cent; and Bengaluru by 15 per cent. Kolkata, which already had the dubious distinction of a smaller difference between day and night temperatures, is now worse, because of higher humidity levels. We know all this is part of that double-whammy we see in our world. On the one hand, there is a warming planet — this year has broken all previous high temperature records. Worse, there are changes afoot in the way the weather behaves in terms of erratic rain, intense heat, and changes in wind patterns. All this makes heat more stressful, more deadly. On the other hand, our cities are seeing a dramatic change in micro-climate — the heat island effect is amplified as concrete takes over open and green spaces; and traffic and the use of energy for cooling add to the heat being trapped in the air. This summer has taught us new lessons in heat stress. The fact is, climate change will throw at us many such surprises in terms of impact on human health. Even now, this science is not understood. What climate change will do is bring the impacts closer to our bodies and our health. This is why planetary health is about human health. It is time we made this connection. It is time we understood why climate change is an existential crisis; it is literally about life and death.

Delhi Sees Cleanest Day Since Sept 2023

New Delhi: The city experienced its cleanest air day in 301 days on Sunday as the Air Quality Index (AQI) dipped to 56, falling into the lower end of the 'satisfactory' category. Better air quality than this was last observed on Sept 10, 2023, when the city enjoyed an AQI of 45, falling in the ‘good’ category. Rain in Delhi and adjoining areas, accompanied by strong winds, has kept Delhi's air clean during the monsoon season. The intensity of the rain is likely to reduce over the next few days. Delhi Sees Cleanest Day Since Sept 2023 Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment, said, “The onset of rains has an immediate washout effect. We will see more clean air days during the monsoon season. This breather needs to be effectively used to pace up action to be better prepared for winter. Pollution will bounce back. We need focused strategies.” Dipankar Saha, former head of the CPCB’s air laboratory, said, “After the monsoon withdraws from Delhi and winter starts settling in, the air quality starts deteriorating again. Efforts should be intensified to cut emissions at the source level.” The Central Pollution Control Board’s data shows that the city has witnessed six days with ‘satisfactory’ AQI this year so far. The first ‘satisfactory’ day of the year was recorded on June 27 with an AQI of 79. After the arrival of the monsoon on June 28, the air quality index has stayed below 120. During the same period last year, the number of days with a ‘satisfactory’ AQI was 21. The air quality is likely to remain in the ‘satisfactory’ category until July 9 but is predicted to deteriorate to the ‘moderate’ category on July 10, according to the Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi. Rain, meanwhile, eluded Delhi on Sunday as no precipitation was recorded from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm. The India Meteorological Department’s forecast said there are chances of rain over the next six days. “Rain activity is likely to be a subdued affair in Delhi for the next few days. Due to anticyclonic conditions over Madhya Pradesh, Central India may see rains. However, the city may receive rain after the shifting of the monsoon trough,” said a Met official. The maximum temperature on Sunday was 35.8 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal. It is likely to stay around 35-36 degrees for the next few days. The minimum temperature stood at 26.2 degrees, two notches below normal. The relative humidity oscillated between 57% and 93%.

Mercury to remain above 30°C, but more showers likely this wk

Gurgaon: Residents can breathe easy for the next few days as the Met department has predicted scattered rainfall in the region till July 13, with little change in temperature range. After scorching summer weeks, weather has been pleasant in Delhi-NCR since monsoon’s arrival late last month. On Sunday, minimum temperature rose to 25.6 degrees Celsius, slightly higher than Saturday’s 24.9 degrees Celsius. The city’s maximum temperature – at 35 degrees Celsius – was less than a notch higher than Saturday’s 34.2 degrees Celsius. Humidity levels were high, at 80%, recorded on Sunday evening. Manesar and areas near Sector 81 saw a 20-minute spell of showers on Sunday evening, with the Met department recording 14mm of rainfall till 4pm. An official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said minimum temperatures will remain in the range of 25-28 degrees Celsius, and maximum is expected to hover around 33 to 35 degrees Celsius over the coming days. “Overall, weather will remain comfortable, with occasional rainfall and thunderstorms likely to provide relief from heat,” the official said. On Sunday, the city’s average 24-hour air quality was ‘satisfactory’, at 98, due to brisk winds and clear skies after showers. According to central govt’s System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar), AQI will remain ‘satisfactory’ for the next five days. “In Gurgaon where smog-choked days blur into one another, the rare occurrence of clean air and bearable weather feels like a fleeting oasis. It’s a respite we cling to and for some days, we can breathe freely,” said Abhishek Mishra, a resident of Sector 52. Delhi sees cleanest day since Sept 2023 The city experienced its cleanest air day in 301 days on Sunday as the Air Quality Index (AQI) dipped to 56, falling into the lower end of the 'satisfactory' category. Better air quality than this was last observed on Sept 10, 2023, when the city enjoyed an AQI of 45, falling in the ‘good’ category. Rain in Delhi and adjoining areas, accompanied by strong winds, has kept Delhi's air clean during the monsoon season. The intensity of the rain is likely to reduce over the next few days. Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment, said, “The onset of rains has an immediate washout effect. We will see more clean air days during the monsoon season. This breather needs to be effectively used to pace up action to be better prepared for winter. Pollution will bounce back. We need focused strategies.”

Heat waves across Asia stoke health concerns, food security fears

Santosh Sikdar, 52, who does welding jobs for a small construction company in Kolkata, eastern India, finds the scorching weather "simply unbearable", but says he cannot afford to skip work, even for one day. "This is a killing summer … a blast-furnace situation … hot, humid and sultry. Sometimes, I fear that I may collapse at any moment," he said. Authorities and experts in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, advised people to stay at home, but Sikdar, who works for a daily wage, said that staying at home is not financially feasible. "Even a day of missed work will mean that my family and I have empty stomachs," he said, questioning the "luxury" of staying indoors. "It is a matter of survival for us," he said. Large parts of South and Southeast Asia are in the grip of unrelenting heat waves. New Delhi this summer recorded one of India's highest-ever temperatures of 49.9 C, while some areas in Pakistan hit 53 C. Across the region, farmers have struggled to plant their crops, industries are facing labor shortages, and schools have shut for days amid the unrelenting heat. Mehr Ghazanfar Abbas, a farmer in Layyah district in Pakistan's Punjab province, is one of those suffering. He recently collapsed under the blazing sun as he reached the middle of his field. Other farmers rushed to help, carrying him to a nearby medical unit where a doctor diagnosed him with sunstroke. Vulnerable populations The impact of the extreme heat in South Asia has been profound, escalating health risks such as heatstroke and dehydration, and affecting vulnerable populations like the elderly and impoverished, said Anjal Prakash, an associate professor and research director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, a think tank under the Indian School of Business. "Agriculture suffers from crop failures and water scarcity, exacerbating food insecurity," said Prakash, who contributes to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Additionally, extreme heat intensifies air pollution and exacerbates energy demands, leading to power shortages and economic strain." India has had record heat in recent months, with temperatures hovering above 45 degrees for long stretches and even soaring beyond 50 degrees in some regions, according to the Indian Meteorological Department. Since May 14, the capital New Delhi had recorded at least 40 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 40 C till June 22, a department official said. "I have spent almost four decades in Delhi, but I have never experienced such an excruciatingly painful heat wave," said Prasun Dutta, a retired electrical engineer. The summer is "not only sapping and draining, it is financially ruining us," said Shyamapada Pal, a 40-year-old farm laborer from Bankura district in West Bengal. "It has been the severest, harshest and cruelest in recent memory." There were more than 40,000 suspected heatstroke cases and at least 110 confirmed deaths between March 1 and June 18, when northwest and eastern India recorded twice the usual number of heat-wave days, an Indian Health Ministry official said. More than 450 million people in India work in the informal sector, employed on farms, construction sites or at foundries. They have little job protection or rights, leaving them extremely vulnerable during times of severe weather. The extreme heat has also depleted groundwater, and water reservoir levels are down to nearly 35 percent of capacity in some parts of the country. In many cities, including New Delhi, local authorities have announced water conservation measures, including a ban on car washing. "Heat waves and their impacts on water resources will increase manifold in the near future," Sanjay Vashist, director of Climate Action Network South Asia, told environment magazine Down To Earth. "Shrinking water resources can lead to conflict situations within a country, endangering national security."

Heat waves across Asia stoke health concerns, food security fears

Soma Sen Roy, a scientist at the IMD, said the heat wave stemmed from a combination of factors, including El Nino. Sunita Narain, director-general of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said at a recent Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific roundtable that "temperatures in Delhi have remained abnormally high over the last two months". "Scientists are now very clear that the abnormally long duration of high temperatures in Delhi and the intensity of the heat wave are linked to climate change," said Narain. There are multiple factors leading to the extreme heat in South Asian and Southeast Asian regions but climate change remains in the background, said William Yu, founder and CEO of the World Green Organization, an NGO based in Hong Kong. Two years ago, the UK Met office warned that the probability of record-breaking heat hitting India and Pakistan had increased 100 fold due to climate change. Yu said that due to economic constraints people living in tropical areas often do not have sufficient cooling facilities or ventilation indoors. As for outdoor workers, they need to keep themselves hydrated and take regular breaks to avoid heatstroke, he said. "Inaction on climate change is intolerable now, given the various calamities across the world this year, including flooding in the Middle East, Brazil and Afghanistan, and drought and extreme heat in many other places," he said. Green finance is very important to addressing the issue of adaptation and to building climate resilience for the common good of humanity, Yu added. Jayanta Basu, an Indian environmentalist and convener of the Kolkata Climate Action Plan, said the time has come to prepare long-term and short-term plans to address high heat for vulnerable regions of India, taking into consideration various factors "The most important thing is that heat mainly affects the poor and marginalized as they often have to work under heat stress conditions. They should take priority in planning linked to heat-related resilience," he said.

Delhi breathes easy: AQI drops to 56 as blue skies dominate

Patchy blue skies with sporadic cloud cover prevailed across the Capital on Sunday as breezy winds swept the city, aiding the 24-hour average Air Quality Index (AQI) to log a reading of 56 (satisfactory) — Delhi’s best air day this year so far, and the cleanest air recorded in over 300 days— data from the Central Pollution Control Board showed. Although some isolated locations received a drizzle till 8.30am on Sunday, no rain was recorded between 8.30am and 5.30pm, data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) showed. The weather agency has removed its colour-coded alerts for the next six days as no significant rain activity is expected. Delhi’s previous lowest AQI this year was 61 (satisfactory) on July 4 and Sunday’s was the lowest AQI since September 11, 2023, when it was 53. However, predictions by the Centre’s Early Warning System (EWS) said Delhi’s air was unlikely to touch the “good” category in the coming days. “AQI should remain ‘satisfactory’ till July 9. It may touch the ‘moderate’ range on July 10, in the absence of significant rain,” the forecast said. An AQI of 51 to 100 is classified as “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 as “moderate”, between 201 and 300 as “poor”, 301 and 400 as “very poor” and over 400 as “severe” by CPCB. The last “good” air day was on September 10, 2023, when the AQI recorded a reading of 54. According to CPCB’s national bulletin at 4pm on Sunday, carbon monoxide, PM10 and ozone were the primary pollutants on Sunday. Experts pointed out that the Capital’s air quality begins to improve towards the end of June as monsoon makes inroads. It stays between the “satisfactory” and “moderate” range until winter starts to make its way. Dust particles settle down with rain and gases gain prominence in the air, emerging as primary pollutants. “This relief is only temporary as once the rains stop, Delhi’s AQI will again shoot up to dangerous levels in the winter months,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). No heavy rain in the week ahead The Safdarjung observatory, representative of Delhi’s weather, recorded “trace” rainfall till 8.30 am on Sunday, along with Lodhi Road and Ridge. The Palam station received 0.2mm during this period. Weather scientists said that the city was unlikely to receive much rain in the coming days as the monsoon trough will likely remain away. However, isolated drizzle will be recorded in isolated locations, they said.

Crackdown. Holding building sites accountable for their actions

It may seem like an innocuous report buried in the inside pages of a newspaper, but it represents an issue with an enormous fallout on the lives of a city’s population and the air it breathes. According to information put out, the Delhi Public Works Department has instructed firms working on its construction projects to install CCTV cameras and PM 2.5 and PM 10 pollution sensors at their sites, or else pay fines ranging from ₹500 to ₹2,000. It has also asked them to set up protective screens at their sites, install anti-smog guns, and demarcate enclosed spaces for grinding and cutting material. Besides this, construction material needs to be kept covered and water sprinkled on unpaved areas from time to time to keep in check air pollution levels generated due to Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste. The action followed a pilot study by the department in collaboration with the Air Pollution Action Group (A-PAG) which works with government agencies to combat air pollution. The study found construction sites were not fully compliant and not following guidelines of the Commission for Air Quality Management. Delhi is not an isolated case. Most construction sites across cities are equally guilty and need a study and action plan. Last December when the Centre for Science and Environment released its report, “Construction and Demolition Waste: Closing the loop for sustainability,” CSE director general Sunita Narain noted: “A decade back, the concern with C&D waste was not about air pollution, but about saving waterbodies from the dumping of this waste. By 2018-19 it was about dust in the air which was contributing to pollution. “ With “development” being equated with construction, C&D waste has only risen. There is no current database on C&D waste generated, but an old estimation pins it at 12-15 million tonnes annually. However, this may be much more given the construction industry projects turnover to touch $1.4 trillion by 2025, contributing 13 per cent to the economy. India has increased its material consumption six times from 1.18 billion tonne in 1970 to seven billion tonne in 2015. And its resource extraction rate stands at 1,580 tonne per acre as compared to the world average of 450 tonne per acre. While India imports many raw materials such as sand, it has a lower recycling rate at 20-25 per cent compared to developed EU countries (70 per cent).

Heat-humidity: Peak power demand in all 3 summer mths at record highs

Kolkata: Record heat and humidity drove Kolkata's peak power demand in all the three summer months — April, May and June — to record highs this year. The city endured particularly scorching conditions in April, when it faced searing dry heat, and sauna-like situation from May to June, when it was both very hot and extremely humid. Data from power utility CESC shows demand rose by 200-300 megawatts (MW) on the hottest and most humid days. The consumption aligns with the wet-bulb temperatures (WBT) that measures both heat and humidity. Heat-humidity: Peak power demand in all 3 summer mths at record highs April-end saw a prolonged and unprecedented spell of heatwave with the mercury breaching 40°C on April 24 and continuing with its record-breaking climb to touch 43°C on April 30, just 0.3°C shy of the all-time high April temperature of 43.3°C recorded in 1954. Consequently, power consumption peaked to 2,728 MW on April 25-26. In May, with increasing humidity, the heat index or real-feel temperature soared. On May 2, when the maximum temperature was 38°C and the minimum 31°C, relative humidity jumped to 65%, causing peak power demand to jump nearly 300 MW over last year's May. Demand spiked again on June 11,when the gap between day and night temperature narrowed and relative humidity exceeded 90%. A senior official from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Alipore, highlighted the role of high humidity in exacerbating heat-related discomfort. Kolkata's average summertime temperature has risen by 0.2°C over the last decade compared to 2001-10 — it is 0.5°C for cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai — while relative humidity, too, has increased significantly in recent years. A study led by environmentalist Anumita Roy Choudhury from Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found that Kolkata's decadal average ambient air temperatures have showed insignificant change but relative humidity has increased by 5% between 2001-2010 and 2014-2023. The study also found a 3.5% rise in the decadal heat index and a threefold increase in days with a daily heat index exceeding 41°C, indicating a dangerous heat level. Additionally, the study says monsoons in Kolkata are becoming more thermally uncomfortable than pre-monsoons due to a higher heat index. The number of extremely hot and humid days, using 30°C wet-bulb temperatures (WBT) as a threshold, has also markedly increased. WBTs above 35°C are considered lethal for extended exposure. As heatwaves may soon become more common, the report suggests the burden of power generation cannot rest solely on thermal plants, which are already operating near full capacity, and India should focus on expanding solar power capacity.