From heat nights to seismic shocks: Local weather change is rewriting India’s public well being future

Latest climate patterns throughout India supply compelling proof that local weather change is now not a looming risk, it’s a lived actuality. Rising city temperatures, elevated seismic exercise and environmental degradation demand not simply coverage responses however pressing behavioural and structural reforms. On the core of this disaster lies an inescapable fact: local weather change has grow to be a public well being emergency.

This yr’s World Well being Day theme, Wholesome Beginnings, Hopeful Futures, reminds us that the well being of our planet is inseparable from the well being of our individuals. Local weather-related disruptions at the moment are straight threatening maternal and baby well being, meals safety, respiratory well-being, and entry to important companies, significantly for these most weak.

In the course of the previous winter, historically milder cities equivalent to Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata skilled unusually heat days and nights. In line with a March 2025 India At the moment evaluation, Delhi’s common temperature elevated by 0.12°C over the previous decade. Mumbai and Chennai warmed by almost 1°C, whereas Kolkata noticed a 0.42°C rise. Although these figures could seem modest, they carry critical well being implications, starting from dehydration and respiratory sickness to cardiovascular stress and being pregnant issues.

A 2024 research revealed in Nature stories that Indian cities are warming at a mean price of 0.53°C per decade, with urbanisation alone contributing 0.2°C. The city warmth island impact—pushed by concrete growth and declining inexperienced cowl—has rendered cities considerably hotter than their rural environment, with penalties that disproportionately have an effect on youngsters, the aged and the city poor.

When the evening presents no reduction

Significantly alarming is the sharp rise in “heat nights”, the place temperatures stay above 25°C. As documented by the Centre for Science and Surroundings (CSE) in 2023, Indian cities skilled 718 such nights between 2014 and 2023, a 32% enhance over the earlier decade. The shortcoming of the city ambiance to chill in a single day intensifies public well being dangers, together with sleep deprivation, maternal stress, and elevated vulnerability amongst newborns and folks with continual diseases.

Tremors throughout the area

Parallel to this warming pattern is a troubling uptick in seismic exercise throughout South Asia. In March 2025, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar with tremors felt over 600 miles away in Bangkok. The quake claimed over 3,000 lives and injured 1000’s. In Bangkok, a collapsing under-construction skyscraper killed not less than 19 individuals, with 75 reported lacking. A couple of months earlier, in November 2023, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in Nepal claimed over 150 lives, largely in distant communities with restricted entry to healthcare.

Whereas such occasions are historically attributed to tectonic motion, rising views level to large-scale human interventions, equivalent to deep mining, mega dam development, and deforestation, as potential contributors to geophysical instability. These actions displace large volumes of Earth’s mass, doubtlessly affecting the planet’s centre of gravity. Though additional research is required, this idea provides to the rising physique of proof linking ecological disruption with structural vulnerability.

This concern aligns with the IPCC’s Sixth Evaluation Report (2021), which states unequivocally that human exercise is the dominant driver of at the moment’s accelerating local weather disaster.

Rethinking growth by a public well being lens

India should now replicate critically on its growth paradigm. In line with the World Assets Institute, the nation misplaced almost 18 per cent of its tree cowl between 2000 and 2020, a lot of it to infrastructure growth in ecologically fragile areas. These losses compromise not solely biodiversity but additionally the important pillars of public well being: clear air, protected consuming water and meals safety.

If we’re to grasp wholesome beginnings and hopeful futures, our mitigation methods should be rooted in fairness and resilience. People should undertake sustainable habits; communities should lead native environmental efforts; governments should implement climate-sensitive regulation and put money into renewables; and companies should embed sustainability into core technique. Gujarat’s cool roofs initiative, the place reflective paint helped cut back indoor warmth in low-income settlements, exemplifies easy but impactful climate-health interventions.

Local weather change just isn’t a theoretical debate. It’s shaping each day realities, altering well being outcomes, and threatening future generations. The warmth is actual. The quakes are actual. And science is irrefutable.

Because the Earth recalibrates, we should ask ourselves: will we reply in time, or go away behind a world too fragile for the very lives we vow to guard?

The creator is Co-founder and CEO, DevInsights. The views expressed within the above piece are private and solely these of the creator. They don’t essentially replicate Firstpost’s views.