As half of Europe gasped under a 30-degree sun this summer, suits at London Climate Week marvelled at thermometers. Thirty degrees? In much of India, that’s a gentle day, a respite from the inferno. Heatwaves are not curiosities. They are a life-altering, economy-shattering, often deadly problem.
The monsoon has brought relief to parts of India. But it risks becoming a harbinger of amnesia. The cause of the crisis remains. According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Asia is warming at twice the global average. The “State of the Climate in Asia 2024” report lays out the trend clearly: Last year was the warmest on record. Between 1991 and 2024, the warming rate was nearly double that of 1961 to 1990.
Estimates vary widely. An RTI query to the Health Ministry showed 3,812 heat-related deaths between 2015 and 2022 under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme. In contrast, the National Crime Records Bureau reported 8,171 deaths from heat and sunstroke during the same period. Meanwhile, India Meteorological Department figures put the number at 3,436. Disjointed reporting systems obscure the real toll, weakening both awareness and response.
In 2024, India endured its longest recorded heatwave since 2010. Over 44,000 cases of heatstroke were reported. More than a billion people across 23 states were exposed to dangerous levels of heat. This is not only about daytime highs. Very warm nights are rising faster than very hot days. Nearly 70 per cent of districts recorded five more warm nights per summer over the last decade. Cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai trap heat through the night. The loss of overnight cooling prevents recovery, pushing people closer to heat exhaustion.
The burden is uneven. The risk of death rises sharply for the elderly, the disabled, the homeless and those with chronic health conditions. In India, the vulnerable include construction workers, agricultural labourers, slum residents and informal sector workers. The economic cost is high. India could lose the equivalent of 35 million full-time jobs and see a 4.5 percent reduction in GDP by 2030 due to heat stress.
So far, policy has not kept up. Heat remains underestimated and structurally ignored. The response is casual, often reduced to public advisories urging people to stay indoors. But temperature alone does not kill. Risk arises from two other factors: Sensitivity and capacity to adapt. Two people in the same city may face the same temperature. One works in the sun for hours, the other in an air-conditioned office. One may have access to a clinic, the other does not. The ability to cope is infrastructural. It is unequal. If we bring in factors such as gender, caste, rural-urban, the problem is exacerbated.
Current Heat Action Plans reflect this indifference. Most fail to account for humidity and nighttime heat. Few consider the needs of specific vulnerable groups. Early warning systems are often vague and population-wide.
Some innovation offers promise. Researchers at IIT Roorkee have developed a prototype system to forecast individual health risk from heat stress over a five-day window. It uses weather data, health and occupational variables to generate a personal risk score. Unlike broad public alerts, such tools can help individuals plan their routines based on actual risk. Technology, including AI, can refine these systems further by detecting localised patterns and triggering targeted responses. Recent advances in AI forecasting, such as Google DeepMind’s new weather prediction model, show the potential. The system outperforms conventional models on nearly all targets, improves tropical cyclone tracking by up to 24 hours, and delivers forecasts eight times faster. For low-income and climate-vulnerable countries, such breakthroughs could improve early warnings, reduce disaster losses, and support better targeting of evacuation, health, and infrastructure resources.
AI can narrow the gap between prediction and protection. But alerts alone will not fix broken systems. Urban cooling requires structural change. Cities must prioritise shade, water and ventilation. Green spaces, shaded walkways and water bodies are not luxuries. They reduce surface temperatures, enable recovery, and create liveable spaces. Cities that manage heat better also perform better economically. The funding is available. Heatwaves are now recognised under the State Disaster Mitigation Fund, allowing targeted use of resources. What is missing is urgency.
Cutting carbon dioxide remains the long-term priority. But the short-term burden of heat calls for a parallel track. Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) such as methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons are much more potent in the near term. They stay in the atmosphere for a shorter period but trap far more heat. Reducing SLCPs can help slow global warming by up to 0.6-degree Celsius by 2050. That is not a small gain. It means fewer deaths, lower economic losses and more time for infrastructure to catch up.
One way forward is to adopt climate accounting based on Radiative Forcing (RF) — a measure that tracks changes in Earth’s energy balance. RF considers pollutants’ actual heat-trapping impact over time, tailored to their lifespans. It captures co-pollutants and reflects the true warming effects of different gases. It is compatible with IPCC methods and better suited for managing near-term risk.
India is well positioned to lead this shift. As it prepares to launch its national carbon market by 2026, the RF model offers a more robust accounting system that could support higher-quality offsets and greater credit volumes. Unlike the European Union, India’s system is still in its early stages. That gives it a clean slate.
This is also relevant as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is set to impose climate tariffs on imported goods. Early estimates suggest this could cost India 0.05 percent of GDP. A scientifically credible domestic pricing system could offset these losses.
More broadly, finance is key. In its 2024–25 budget, India announced work on a national climate finance taxonomy. At its core, this framework will classify what counts as climate action. But the real challenge lies in adaptation. Traditional adaptation is hard to define and harder to measure. Local practices vary widely, from terraced farming in the northeast to rooftop water harvesting in Rajasthan.
Global attempts to develop adaptation taxonomies have produced more confusion than consensus. A better approach is to classify outcomes rather than actions. Reducing heat exposure in slums, improving coastal flood resilience or enabling farmers to shift cropping cycles — these are tangible outcomes that can accommodate diverse methods.
Such an outcome-based taxonomy would also align with global efforts. The Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation and the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience offer a set of thematic and cyclical targets. These could guide taxonomy design while enabling interoperability with global financial markets.
India has an opportunity to lead. A taxonomy focused on outcomes, powered by RF-based accounting, and grounded in local realities can channel more finance to where it is most needed. It would also allow India to shape global rules, not just follow them.
The writer is the director of the India Programme at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD)
Reducing heat exposure in slums, improving coastal flood resilience or enabling farmers to shift cropping cycles — these are tangible outcomes that can accommodate diverse methods. 
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