Heat-Related Deaths In India Have Risen 55% Over the Past 17 Years - Report

Climate Transparency reported last week that among the G20 nations, India has emerged as the hardest-hit nation in terms of a carbon emissions-induced rise in temperatures and subsequent economic loss.

The period of 2017 to 2021 in India witnessed 55 percent more heat-related deaths than from 2000 to 2004, the latest Lancet Countdown report revealed on Wednesday.

The rising heat and its exposure caused 167.2Bln possible labor hours to be lost among Indians in 2021, resulting in income losses equivalent to about 5.4 percent of the gross domestic product, the report said.

The study comes just days ahead of the 27th Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP27), scheduled to take place between 6 and 18 November in Egypt, where India - along with a group of least developed countries (the G-77) - is expected to seek "loss and damages" compensation, as worsening weather conditions hurt the economies of poorer countries the most.

“Because of the rapidly increasing temperatures, vulnerable populations (adults older than 65 years, and children younger than one) were exposed to more heatwave days in 2021, and heat-related deaths increased by 68 percent between 2000–04 and 2017–21 a death toll that was significantly exacerbated by the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, globally,” the report said.

The study also estimated that more than 330,000 people in India died in 2020 because of exposure to particulate matter (PM) from fossil fuel combustion.

In July, India's government acknowledged that there had been a long heatwave spell this year in the months of March and April.