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South Asia: Heat wave 2022

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An Indian woman sparkling water on to the street in front of her light blue house.
Svetlana Eremina/Shutterstock

Introduction

The collection explores causes and the various impacts this heat wave brings on society in South Asia. India and Pakistan are experiencing a record-shattering heatwave with temperatures exceeding 45℃, and breaking a 122-year-old record. The current heatwave is affecting over 1.5 billion people and over the next 50 years the population of the Indian subcontinent is projected to increase by a further 30%.

In addition, the heatwave demonstrates the reality of systemic risks, leading to critical electricity and water shortages. To break the cylce, South Asia is turning to heat action plans and resilience measures.

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Knowledge base

An older woman from Bangladesh in Cox Bazar looking into the camera.
Updates

As heat waves sweep South Asia, they take a hidden toll on women

There is growing evidence that rising heat is disproportionately affecting women — one study in India found they were significantly more likely than men to die in a heat wave.
The Fuller Project
A woman protects herself from the hot sun in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Research briefs

Increasing heat waves affect up to half a billion people in South Asia

Climate change is a reality and extremely high temperatures have been reported by India and Pakistan in the spring. In a new scientific journal article, researchers from the University of Gothenburg paint a gloomy picture for the rest of the century.
University of Gothenburg
An Asian women harvesting crops in the middle of a field.
Updates

Intensifying heat waves threaten South Asia’s struggling farmers – many of them women

Sitting in a semi-circle in the yard outside of a village school in Nepal, a group of farmers share their concerns about the future. They discuss how the rain is unreliable – droughts and floods are both becoming more common. Before the rain is the heat.
Conversation Media Group, the
Updates

Farmers in mountainous areas of Pakistan feel the heat

This year, an early and hotter start to the summer has forced a change in the crop cycle in Gilgit-Baltistan, high up in the Hindu Kush Himalayas
The Third Pole
Updates

South Asia’s early heatwave a harbinger of climate change

It’s a little before noon and Khalida, working as a domestic helper for a family in Islamabad, is late for work for the third time this week. Sweating profusely and realizing that she might blackout from the heat soon, she scans the road for shade.
United Nations Development Programme
Updates

Climate change: How can India’s concretised, dangerously hot cities be cooled down sustainably?

Extreme weather can reduce productivity and GDP. Ensuring waste management, robust public transport and more open, green spaces could bring some respite.
Scroll.in
Updates

Making of Chandigarh: Planning climate responsiveness and preventing an urban heat island

Chandigarh was designed after multiple deliberations on maximising thermal comfort and creating a pleasant natural microclimate. The city now needs to adopt new technologies to deal with climate change while respecting Le Corbusier’s design philosophy.
The Indian Express
Updates

What happens in India doesn't stay in India. Why this deadly heat wave has a wide reach

Impacts include drought, electricity shortages, crop uncertainty — all unlikely to stay within India's borders
CBC/Radio-Canada
Heat wave action plan 2022
Documents and publications
2022

Heat wave action plan 2022

This document lays out an action plan for managing heatwaves in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Updates

In South Asia, record heat threatens future of farming

Temperatures in India’s capital and parts of Pakistan have at times reached close to 50°C, killing dozens of people in both countries and upending the daily lives and livelihoods of students, labourers, and farmers.
United Nations Environment Programme