More asphalt-melting heatwaves driven by runaway climate change are on the way. The consequences for health and livelihoods are catastrophic, as a third of South Asia’s population depends on outdoor work. To get to grips with this predicament, India must initiate safety nets — a combination of targeted transfers and insurance schemes — to improve the resilience of outdoor workers. Transfers are best linked to the beneficiaries’ own efforts to build resilience, for example, adapting agricultural practices to the uptick in heatwaves. Disaster insurance schemes, far too few in India, should enable workers to transfer some of the losses from debilitating heat to public and private insurance providers.
A hotter future in South Asia
The intensity and frequency of heatwaves have soared in South Asia and they are set to worsen in the years ahead. Extreme heat conditions have hit swathes of India, not only in the northern States of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and New Delhi, but now increasingly also in the south. Following the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) April forecast that maximum temperatures in some parts of Tamil Nadu would rise by 2°-3° Celsius, recorded temperatures hit 41°C in Vellore, Karur, Tiruchi and Tiruttani. Delhi this month suffered its second warmest April in 72 years, temperatures averaging 40.2°C, and Gurgaon in neighbouring Haryana crossed 45°C for the first time. Labour-intensive agriculture and construction have become near impossible during afternoons.
