Burning of coal, oil and gas is causing increasing deadly heatwaves in India and Pakistan. Studies show the connection.
Short-term cooldown for workers in in the Indian city of Ahmedabad
For weeks, more than a billion people in India and Pakistan suffered from a brutal heat wave. According to reports from the World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international research initiative, the temperatures cost more than 40 degrees at least 90 people their lives. There are probably many more, since the increase in excess mortality can only be calculated months after a catastrophe.
According to a recent World Weather Attribution study, the heatwave would have been one degree cooler and 30 times less likely without global warming. Last week, the UK Weather Service estimated that man-made climate change has increased the likelihood of extreme heat events by a factor of 100.
The researchers' analyzes underline the serious consequences of the concentration of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere: In India, the heat has triggered forest fires, in Pakistan meltwater from glaciers has caused flash floods and in both countries there have been power outages. Life without air conditioning became unbearable. In addition, crop yields fell in India – of all things during the global wheat crisis caused by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
“Of course, with future global warming, heat waves like this will become more frequent and hotter,” says Krishna Ahutarao, atmospheric scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and co-author of the WWA study.
Increasing Hunger
Experts warn of the impact on crops and world nutrition. According to a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the climate crisis, conflicts, corona and economic crises have “undermined decades of progress” towards food security.
After declining for decades, the number of undernourished people reached a plateau in the 2010s. It is likely to have risen sharply again in 2020.
Due to the heat, the wheat harvest in India is extreme low – the export of wheat was therefore prohibited
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, international wheat exports were disrupted – both countries had been major grain exporters up until then. In early May, India, the second largest wheat producer after China, banned its exports after heat burned farms and ravaged crops. An estimated 10 to 30 percent of India's wheat harvest is affected, says Aditi Kapoor, risk management expert at the Red Cross and Red Crescent International Climate Center and co-author of the WWA study. “[First] the farmers are affected, and then when prices go up, the poor people who buy the [more expensive] food.”
Since the industrial revolution, humanity has had massive amounts of CO2 and methane in it the atmosphere initiated by the burning of coal, oil and gas, as well as deforestation and heavy livestock farming. These gases create the greenhouse effect, the average temperature on earth has increased and extreme heat events are on the increase.
A study published last year in the journal Energy Research and Social Science found that 20 companies account for more than a third of global greenhouse gases between 1965 and 2018. The four largest energy companies alone – Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell – accounted for eleven percent of all emissions. The companies had not responded to requests for comment at the time of writing.
Adjustment to Rise in Temperature
People who work outdoors during the day – such as farm and construction workers – are particularly at risk from heat waves, but so are the elderly and people with health problems. In 2010, a heat wave in India alone killed 1,344 people in the city of Ahmedabad. In 2015, a heat wave in Pakistan killed more than 1,000 people in the capital, Islamabad.
According to the WWA, 130 Indian cities have implemented heat action plans in the past five years. The preventive measures include the early warning of the population, but also the establishment of so-called cooling centers to provide people with shade and water.
Nevertheless, such solutions cannot help indefinitely. Many people in agriculture and on construction sites cannot afford to stay at home. A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that in some places the “limits of adaptation” have already been reached. Further limits will be reached as the planet continues to warm.
Scenario with persistently high CO2 emissions: The number of fatal heat days is increasing worldwide
Since the Industrial Revolution around 1850, humans have increased the surface temperature on Earth by around 1.1 degrees Celsius. World leaders signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees if possible by the end of the century. However, the trend in measures taken has not been sufficient so far, and scientists are warning of a temperature increase of more than three degrees by the end of this century.
If global warming reaches two degrees, according to the WWA report, one would be Heat wave like in India and Pakistan two to 20 times more likely than today – and an additional 0.5 to 1.5 degrees hotter.
Record Temperatures in India
Best Sellers: Air Conditioning and Ice
India is currently experiencing an extraordinary heat wave – Rajgarh, a city with 1.5 million inhabitants in central India, was the frontrunner on Tuesday with 46.5 degrees, and the thermometer also climbed to over 45 degrees Celsius in nine other cities. No wonder that products that make the high temperatures more bearable sell particularly well on the street markets in New Delhi.
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Record temperatures in India
The heat even ignites the garbage
Due to the high temperatures, a huge garbage dump in India's capital New Delhi has caught fire. Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, notes that prior to man-made climate change, such heat waves occurred about every 50 years. Now you have to reckon with it once every four years.
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Record -Temperatures in India
Old and poor people particularly vulnerable
India's vulnerability to extreme heat increased by 15 percent from 1990 to 2019, according to a 2021 report in The Lancet. The country is among the top five countries where vulnerable people, such as the old and poor, are most exposed to the heat. India also has the highest heat-related mortality rate in the world, alongside Brazil.
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Record temperatures in India
Heat – a serious health hazard
Doctors are already noticing an increased incidence of heat-related diseases and see the high temperatures as a greater danger than an expected fourth wave of COVID-19. In times of need, some people show solidarity. This Kolkata resident has placed a refrigerator on the street and is handing out cool water to passers-by.
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Record temperatures in India
The extreme heat threatens the wheat harvest
Indian farmers have to worry about their harvest – not so much because of the current record temperatures, but because March was the hottest since temperature records began in 1901. The farmers sow the wheat in such a way that the grains ripen in March, which is usually cool, because the grain is particularly sensitive to heat during this phase.
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Record temperatures in India
Harvest shrinks before farmers' eyes
Baldev Singh of Sangrur saw his crops dwindle before his eyes as winter gave way not to a normally cool spring, but straight to unrelenting heat. The farmer from Punjab – the state is also known as the granary of India – lost about a fifth of his yield. Other producers were hit even harder.
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Record temperatures in India
Destroyed hopes for additional income from wheat exports
India, after all the second largest producer in the world, traditionally exports little wheat. In view of the scarcity caused by the Ukraine war, India intended to open up new sales markets and benefit from the increased world market prices. This would now create “a lot of pressure on the domestic availability of wheat,” says Devinder Sharma, an agricultural expert from Chandigarh.
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