Guwahati: Over 90% of the country including Delhi are experiencing extreme weather as a result of climate change placing them in the category of “danger zones” for the effects of heatwaves.
The study conducted by Ramit Debnath at the University of Cambridge and revealed that Delhi is more susceptible to the negative effects of severe heatwaves but this is not reflected in the city’s new state action plan for environmental change.
It was suggested that heatwaves had more of an impact than previously believed on India’s progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and that the country’s current assessment metrics might not accurately capture the effects of heatwaves associated with climate change.
According to a paper written by researchers Kamaljit Beam, S Beam, R K Giri and A P Dimri together with M Rajeevan, a former secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences more than 17,000 lives were lost in India due to heatwaves over the course of 50 years.
Between 1971 and 2019, the country saw 706 heatwaves, according to a report that was published in 2021.
In order to assess India’s climate sensitivity and the possible impact of climate change on SDG progress, researchers at the University of Cambridge compared the country’s heat index with its climate vulnerability index. The heat index (HI) which takes into account both the temperature and the humidity is a gauge of how hot it feels to a human body.