Blogs

Adaptation and Resilience

As India’s response to extreme heat evolves, policy must move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions. Drawing on research with informal workers and lessons from Heat Action Plans, the blog argues that effective heat policy requires grounded evidence, stronger social protection, and closer collaboration between researchers, worker collectives, civil society, and governments.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Environmental Governance and Policy

Urban citizens would be far better served if ULBs were redesigned to overcome jurisdictional fragmentation, funded to hire technical expertise, and empowered to prioritise and deliver co-benefit infrastructure. Above all, city governments must be made answerable to residents for everyday outcomes, such as whether the street floods or the bus is within reach. Change what institutions are capable of and rewarded for, and what they build will change with it.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Energy Transitions

Heatwaves are no longer temporary disruptions to India’s power system; they are emerging as one of its defining operating conditions. The challenge is not merely to keep pace with rising power demand, but also to build a power system that is reliable, climate-resilient, socially equitable, and capable of supporting the country’s long-term energy transition.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Policy must approach coastal hazards as interlinked risks, not disconnected events, to build lasting resilience.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

The climate crisis is also a heath crisis, yet India’s strategy has been more to manage the immediate impact rather than shielding its most vulnerable populations from climate destabilisation.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Jui Gusani and Sony R K write on how India’s coastline relies on seawalls and embankments, while ecosystem-based adaptation through mangroves, seagrasses, and coral reefs continues to reduce climate risks.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

At present, heat action plans are written to be comprehensive rather than implementable. A focus on incentives and implementation—while remaining uncompromising on the determination of thresholds, vulnerability assessments and the specificity of solutions—is a productive way forward. We are yet to see plans that manage this balancing act. An example of how to solve this dilemma could help speed the rollout of heat protections as the climate warms.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

Key questions remain unanswered about the thresholds that define dangerous heat and the evidence supporting interventions to mitigate its health impacts. These underscore the need to build evidence-based and contextually grounded protections for India and the rest of the world. This requires expanding beyond laboratory studies and models to include community-informed research linking physiological and epidemiological data with the lived realities of those at greatest risk.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

Without urgent investments in adaptation, escalating heat and climate impacts will outpace the capacity of India’s health infrastructure and workforce, deepening inequities across regions and populations. To frame a credible health agenda for climate adaptation, we first need to understand the limits of what we know, and why our data systems fail to capture the true scale of climate-related health impacts.