What is India missing in heat planning? Harvard paper has answers
The India Meterological Department on Saturday issued guidelines on heat-related illnesses and strokes, as most of north and central India reels under high temperatures ranging from 40-45 degrees Celsius. The IMD's seasonal outlook also predicts above-normal heatwave days in the peninsula from April to June.
"Extreme heat is the deadliest climate hazard globally, yet it remains among the least resourced in adaptation planning," said the report. "Nowhere is this tension more acute than in India, where over 1.4 billion people contend with (heat) exposure."
The paper tackles two main questions: How heat is measured, felt, and studied, and the different strategies of heat adaptation India should be looking at. The questions were answered by a variety of researchers — climate scientists, doctors, architects and even urban planners. While the white paper did not provide direct recommendations for policymaking, there were suggestions, such as the inclusion of innovative technology and finance methods for heat adaptation.
Also read: Will Fatehpur have world's hottest summer? IMD says mercury to remain five degrees above normal
Even though most of India is currently seeing heatwave-like conditions, the white paper said that India's overall warming is lower than the global average. While the world has seen a 1.4 degrees Celsius rise in overall temperature since 1980, in India, that number is 0.88 degrees Celsius.
This gap is the focus of the first chapter of the white paper, written by Peter Huybers, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.
"Understanding this warming gap matters for adaptation planning because the processes that have partially suppressed warming in parts of India are not guaranteed to persist," read the chapter.
According to Huybers, aerosol pollution and heavy irrigation are two main reasons why India's land could be warming at a slower rate compared to the world. While aerosols from air pollution sources can reflect sunlight and reduce overall warming, irrigation helps cool the land surface, leading to a lower warming trend in India.
However, Hubyers also explained that both these factors are subject to change — pollution control would lead to lower aerosol presence, and groundwater depletion would reduce the intensity of irrigation in the country. The past warming trend could understate India's future temperature rise patterns.
Also read: IIT Bombay study explains why your neighbourhood might sizzle while the next one stays cool
Another chapter in the white paper, written by Harvard University doctors Satchit Balsari and Robert Douglas Meade, and Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Associate at the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, is about how heat is 'felt' by people living in the country.
Titled 'How Hot is Too Hot?', the chapter describes the wet bulb temperature (TWB), a heat plus humidity measurement to define heat stress for people. The threshold for TWB is 35 degrees Celsius. The paper explained how, in any temperature above that, even a relatively healthy person with access to drinking water would still suffer adverse heat stress conditions.
The paper argued that newer studies have shown that the actual TWB threshold differs from region to region, and in some places it can be as low as 26 degrees Celsius.
Balsari, Meade and Pillai also spoke about how heat stroke, i.e., stress on the body due to rising core temperature, is not the only physical impact of extreme heat. Other impacts include cardiovascular diseases, kidney failure, disturbed sleep, and lower productivity in outdoor workers.
"Thus, the seemingly straightforward question of 'how hot is too hot?' cannot be answered without first asking: 'too hot for what?' and also, 'too hot for whom?" read the chapter.
The last six chapters of the white paper deal with various aspects of adaptive policymaking for heat — heat action plans, cool roof programmes, insurance for workers, and heat adaptation finance. Overall, the paper argues that multidisciplinary planning is necessary for inclusive heat policymaking and suggests tech-forward initiatives for India to adapt to rising temperatures.
In the chapter titled Heat Solutions Aren't Just On the Roof, researchers Rajan Rawal and Radhika Khosla talk about how future heat infrastructure planning should move beyond cool roofs to include cooling solutions at every stage of housing, from walls to windows to sustainable material usage and ventilation design.
Aditya Valiathan Pillai, in another chapter, argued that the current Heat Action Plans (HAP) in Indian cities and states need regulatory and financial support to actually be enforced, without which they remain of little use. He also argued that policymaking should treat HAPs as starting points and not "ultimate solutions."
Finally, Harvard epidemiologist Caroline Buckee and Owen Gow, Deputy Director, Extreme Heat Initiative, Atlantic Council, discussed, at length, the concept of parametric heat insurance. It is a method through which workers are paid a certain amount of money when local temperatures increase, to compensate for their lost wages.
In a country like India, where 308 million people are working in heat-exposed sectors, this insurance scheme is attractive. But Buckee and Gow argue that it might not always be effective in preventing health impacts on workers.
This is because the temperature threshold at which workers are sure they will receive a payout is ambiguous, meaning that more often than not, people will go to work even in extreme temperatures and risk their health rather than lose a day's pay.
"Unlike other natural hazards such as floods or cyclones, work can continue under dangerously hot conditions, even when it is physiologically unsafe," said the paper.
The paper argued for the protection of informal workers from extreme heat conditions in the workplace through access to protective gear for industrial jobs, seasonal bans on outdoor construction jobs during extreme summer, direct cash transfers, passive cooling methods, and, most of all, the inclusion of worker groups in deciding policies for heat protection.
"Over the next decade, aligning innovation with India's green industrial strategy could anchor a new 'cool economy,' blending adaptation goals with growth," said the report.
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