Daily power cuts driven by increased electricity demand have led to an eight-hour blackout in parts of India, while coal stocks – fueling 70% of the country’s electricity generation – are running low, prompting warnings Is. A fresh power crisis. The northern wheat crop has been scorched. It was the warmest March in 122 years. Spring had not yet occurred, and those extreme temperatures continued into April and May (though they are predicted to subside this week). Yet, it is not until June that the monsoon is expected to arrive and provide any kind of relief.
What’s the most surprising thing about it? heatwave It is not a one-time test as a taste of things to come as the effects of global warming push India and its neighbors to levels where the climate is a main threat to human health.
The most worrying weather measurement is not the heat typically reported in forecasts, but wet-bulb temperature, which combines heat and humidity to indicate how much evaporation can be absorbed into the air. At wet-bulb temperatures above 35 °C, we are unable to lower our temperature through sweating and suffer potentially fatal heatstroke after only a few hours, even with shade and water. can. Similar effects can occur for those working outside when wet bulb temperatures exceed 32 degrees, and measures below 28 degrees caused thousands of deaths in the European and Russian heatwaves of 2003 and 2010.
Humidity drops as temperature rises, so such events were once considered exceptionally rare. A 2018 study concluded that most severe temperatures near 35 degrees “almost never occur in the current climate.” In fact, a closer analysis of weather station data carried out in 2020 suggests that they are already occurring relatively frequently, especially in heavy temperatures populated from the Persian Gulf through Pakistan and northwest India. areas with
Only 12% of India’s 1.4 billion citizens have air conditioning, which means when their bodies reach the point of heatstroke, millions are unable to cool themselves. This is a situation that is mirrored in neighboring Pakistan, which is facing similar horrific heatwave conditions. The daily wage earners, who toil in the fields, work in factories and construction, sweep the roads and build roads, have no way out.
According to government data, several regions of India have reached near critical wet-bulb temperatures over the past week, although maximum humidity is not occurring at the same time as peak temperatures. In eastern Odisha state, extreme temperatures and humidity on Sunday would have produced wet-bulb temperatures of 36.6 Celsius in parts of capital Bhubaneswar, data showed. Kolkata, a city bigger than Los Angeles or London, also saw conditions that would have reached 35 Celsius together last Friday.
The risk is that, even if the most dangerous levels in the current heatwave are avoided, each warm season is a fresh roll of the dice in whether a freak event will occur that will lead to a large number of deaths. The possibilities get longer with each passing year. The world is currently in the grip of the La Nia climate cycle, which usually brings cooler summers to India. When it next turns to El Nio, the risk will increase even more.
That the government has not declared a national calamity and launched an appropriate response, it will come as no surprise to those who went through the country’s deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
India has a “National Action Plan on Heat-Related Illnesses”, and the federal government on May 1 issued an advisory to states urging them to ensure that hospitals are prepared to deal with the expected surge in demand. But given that the India Meteorological Department (which began collecting nationwide records in 1901) is raising the alarm with heat wave warnings on April 25, it all feels short. Recommended measures such as whitewashing roofs to cool building interiors would be insufficient to deal with a major heatwave. Ensure that safe electricity supply to health centers will not help if the heat and load from millions of air conditioners cause the power grid to collapse when it is most needed.
A year ago, India was battling a deadly Covid-19 wave as citizens took to social media to beg for oxygen and hospitals turned away the seriously ill, gasping for breath, while the government The underfunded health system collapsed under the weight of decades of neglect. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 4 million Indians died in that massacre, far higher than the official figure of just under 524,000. (Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government disputes that finding, even though it has been reiterated by other experts.)
We will never know, as most deaths are not recorded in the world’s largest democracy. So many people who die from the heat, sleeping on baking sidewalks or in unbearably hot slums on the edge of town, will likewise be uncountable. This means that governments, state and federal, will never properly plan for heatwaves, nor will they invest in the infrastructure and systems that help provide relief and reduce the intensity of these climate change-induced disasters. We do. With a warming planet and the increasing intensity of extreme weather events, this will have to change.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Ruth Pollard is a columnist and editor with Bloomberg Opinion. Previously she was the team leader for the Government of South and Southeast Asia at Bloomberg News. She has reported from India and throughout the Middle East and focuses on foreign policy, defense and security.
David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities as well as industrial and consumer companies. He has been a reporter for Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and The Guardian.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.