Climate Change
India to see more deaths due to heat strokes, floods, says WHO former expert
This story was originally published at 20:00 IST on 15 January 2025
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NEW DELHI – India will see more deaths due to heat strokes and floods in the coming years amid rising global temperatures, Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist of the World Health Organization, said. "We have reduced the mortality rate in cyclones, but not in heat stress and floods," she said at the India Meteorological Department's stakeholders meeting on weather and climate services Wednesday.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2024 was the hottest year on record, 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. Apart from death due to heat strokes, Swaminathan stressed the long-term health impacts due to continuous exposure to heat stress.
In the coming years, the urban poor are likely to have the highest health hazards due to heat stress amid higher exposure to heat and lack of air conditioning facilities, she said. "We have to think of ways to cool our cities. Solar-based coolers can be installed in common places for vulnerable people," she said.
To check how climate change is impacting public health, Swaminathan stressed upon the need to integrate climate and health data. "Silo approach stands in the way of wholesome analysis. Weather and health data are there, but it is in different places."
"If air quality is improved, there is an immediate reduction in heart attack cases. That was the case in London," she added.
Along with data integration, other experts pointed out the need to simplify IMD's press release language. "The usage of heavy to very heavy rainfall is a want to be accurate when IMD is not certain what the actual case will be," R.R. Kelkar, former director general of IMD, said.
Reported by Afra Abubacker
Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj
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