NEW DELHI: India saw a 55 per cent rise in deaths due to extreme heat between 2000-2004 and 2017-2019, according to the Lancet’s latest report. In 2020, over 3,30,000 people died in India due to exposure to particulate matter from fossil fuel combustion, the report added. According to the 2022 report titled ‘Countdown on health and climate change,’ heat-related deaths increased by 68 per cent between 2000–04 and 2017–21, the death toll exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“..the changing climate is affecting the spread of infectious diseases, putting populations at higher risk of emerging diseases and co-epidemics,” the report, which was released on Wednesday, said, adding that exposure to extreme heat affects health directly, exacerbating underlying conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and causing adverse pregnancy outcomes, worsened sleep patterns, poor mental health, and increased injury-related death.
During March-April, 2022, India experienced a heat wave that was 30 times more likely to have happened because of climate change. Besides impacting lives, the heat wave severely affected people’s livelihoods. Exposure to heat also caused a loss of 167.2 billion potential labour hours among Indians in 2021, the study noted, resulting in income losses equivalent to about 5.4 per cent of the national gross domestic product.
“Persistent fossil fuel over-dependence is worsening climate change, leading to dangerous health impacts around the world,” the report added.For the study, 42 indicators across five domains – climate change, adaptation, planning and resilience for health, mitigation actions and health co-benefits, economics and finance, and public and political engagement — were analysed. The study stated that between 1951-1960 and 2012-2021, the number of months suitable for dengue transmission by the Aedes aegypti mosquito increased by 1.69 per cent and reached 5.6 months yearly.
“The changing climate is exacerbating the risk of infectious disease outbreaks and threatening global food security, with heatwave days associated with 98 million more people experiencing food insecurity in 2020 than in 1981-2010,” it said. The study also found that biomass accounted for 61 per cent of household energy consumption in 2019 in India, against 20 per cent for fossil fuels. It recommended that improvement in air quality will help to prevent deaths resulting from exposure to fossil fuel-derived particulate matter.
It stressed that governments and companies continue to follow strategies that threaten the health and survival of people alive today and of future generations. “With the world projected to heat by 2.4-3.50 Celsius, there is an urgency of accelerating mitigation and adaptation to prevent the devastating outcomes of a heating world,” the report said.