India is at the bullseye of climate change’s heat impacting workers — this has economic effects

Source: The post is based on the article “India is at the bullseye of climate change’s heat impacting workers — this has economic effects” published in The Times of India on 15^th April 2023.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Climate Change

Relevance: Impact of rising heat

News: The article discusses various impacts of rising heat on labour productivity and on economy.

What are the impacts of the heat?

Heat, humidity and outdoor air pollution may have a health impact on workers working outside. This can have economic impacts on a nation.

Which areas are more affected by the rising heat?

Most areas in the tropics or within about 30 degrees of the equator are getting hotter and more humid on average. Even, mornings and night are getting warmer too. This can have a series of cascading health impacts.

How is India impacted by rising heat?

One of the most intense locations on Earth which is mostly hot and humid is the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

India also has a high number of people working outdoors, doing manual labour in agriculture, construction, etc. which involves working out in the sun, lifting loads and lacking heat protection.

Therefore, In India, there are a lot of people which generates internal body heat and this becomes worse by high heat and humidity. This ultimately leads to various health impacts.

Moreover, half of the labour lost to human heat exposure around the world is in India. 

China is also impacted given that its large populations live in eastern China which is low-lying and near the coast where it is hotter and more humid seasonally.

However, from various observations, India seems the most impacted in terms of lost labour productivity. This can have economic impact on India.

How is heat and deforestation linked?

The emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing global warming and the temperature is expected to increase more in the future.

In such a situation, deforestation raises temperatures locally because trees conduct photosynthesis and evapotranspiration which cools the surrounding environment. 

Therefore, across tropical rainforest regions, there is a strong association between deforestation and temperatures increasing from half a degree to several degrees Celsius locally.

What are some important mitigation measures that can be adopted?

Some of the measures than can be adopted are – a) work hours might be shifted from the hottest hours to cooler periods, b) local regulation should be brought up to prevent workers from working during the hottest hours and c) workers should be allowed to rest in those periods and their resting place should be in the shade, with cool, clean drinking water available to tackle dehydration.