Sustainable solutions for cooling are important to check acceleration of the climate crises. Their absence leads to high greenhouse gas emissions and worsening global warming. The issue of balancing heat and cooling and the solutions were discussed by policymakers, industry leaders, and experts to at the just concluded two-day event on Global Heat & Cooling Forum: Solutions for a Warming World organised by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and supported by the World Bank, Ministry of Science and Technology, and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). 

India is bearing the brunt of high heat risk due to lack of cooling access for 309 million people. Additionally, the impact of climate change is unevenly distributed between the developing and the developed world and the rich and the poor in these countries. The entities who have contributed the least to emissions are the ones most affected by it.  The rising frequency of heatwaves underscores the heat divide, where limited energy access and unaffordable cooling poses a serious threat to human health and safety.

India has taken a pioneering step with the The India Cooling Action Plan, which states, “The cross sectoral nature of cooling and its use in important development sectors of economy makes provision for cooling an important developmental necessity, which can have bearing on the environment, the economy and the quality of life of the citizens of the country.” The India Cooling Action Plan has also divided cooling into active and passive cooling.

Talking at the event, Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, Minister of State, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Communications, Government of India, said, “Climate change is no longer a distant threat. It is the biggest challenge we face today. Heat stress is the silent crisis reshaping our economy, our health and our communities. And we cannot afford to look away.”

He added, “Heat waves have already claimed over 11,000 lives since 2009, making them India’s deadliest natural disaster after cyclones. But the impact extends beyond health. By 2050, it is estimated that more than 200 million people will be affected, and our GDP could cut down by close to 4.5 percent because most of our informal workforce is dependent on outdoor labour.”

Abhas Jha, Practice Manager, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, South Asia Region, World Bank, said,“If sustainable solutions are not found to reduce the poverty gap in cooling, GHG emissions may increase. Nowadays, air conditioners are sold every 15 seconds, and a majority of them have high emissions and are energy inefficient. Since heatwaves have tripled in the last ten years, finding sustainable cooling is a pressing issue.”

A World Bank Group working paper states that cities in India are developing Heat Action Plans that combine physical cooling measures (such as urban greening and reflective roofs) with public health measures (such as heat-health early warning systems), but “there is a key knowledge gap on the relative efficacy of these actions”. 

To inform debate on how scarce public funds could most efficiently be allocated to reduce deaths and productivity loss due to extreme heat, the authors of the paper titled Prioritizing Heat Mitigation Actions in Indian Cities: A Cost-Benefit Analysis under Climate Change Scenarios have developed spatially explicit heat risk maps for Lucknow, Chennai, and Surat under climate scenarios; modelled future health and economic losses under a “no intervention” scenario; and estimated the costs and benefits of alternative sets of heat mitigation actions. 

“The modelling suggests that by 2050, the number of heat-related deaths could rise by one-third for the case study cities, while labour productivity losses could affect between 2 and 4 percent of their economic output,” notes the paper. 

The paper adds that among the interventions typically considered in city Heat Action Plans, benefit-to-cost ratios are favourable but vary significantly and urban greening investments more than cover their costs based on the health and labour productivity benefits of the heat stress reduction they yield (benefit-cost ratio of 3:1).

However, the paper adds, “Heat-health early warning systems offer the greatest harm reduction per dollar invested (benefit-cost ratios exceeding 50:1), suggesting that they are “low-hanging fruit” whose wider implementation across Indian and global cities should be prioritised.”

Amit Prothi, Director General, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), said, “Heat plans should dig into the green space, and unpack it because that’s really how we start to address the problem. IMD might issue the warning, but somebody needs to now translate that into a decision support system so that the hospital is better prepared, so that the power utility is better prepared, because if you have ACs and you have no power, it doesn’t matter.”

The discussion also focussed on the construction sector.  Traditional architectural means like courtyards and Jhalis, common features of traditional housing in India, which helped in reducing heat stress by ventilation were spotlighted.

Safi Ahsan Rizvi, Advisor, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said, “In the rural areas traditional housing is a very good solution. The kind of ventilation and the kind of sheltered areas and verandas that are more traditionally part of our construction need to be promoted. The Government of India has 72 schemes. In we integrate the idea of passive cooling into housing designs under these schemes, it is the best way to push cooling, especially in the rural areas.”

Mitigating cooling also needs to come with accessibility. Dia Mirza, Goodwill Ambassador United Nations Environment Programme, said, “India as we know is at the centre of extreme heat crisis and will be the world’s largest consumer of cooling by 2050. At the centre of mitigation and the scale at which we want to work on it is also making cooling accessible to everyone and to ensure that cooling is not just accessible but sustainable.”

The World Bank team in collaboration with Atkins Realis is developing an Urban Heat Handbook, that is going to serve as a comprehensive compendium for policy makers and professionals working on heat stress. At the forum, the team discussed the handbook from experts working in the field and sought feedback. The handbook is likely to be released in June 2025.