Climate Change Emerges as India's Health Emergency
Dr Swaminathan urged rapidly expanding cities such as Hyderabad to adopt climate‑resilient building methods
HYDERABAD: Climate change is no longer a distant threat but a present‑day public health emergency, particularly for countries like India, former ICMR director and public health expert Dr Soumya Swaminathan said on Wednesday. Delivering the 13th Dr Manohar VN Shirodkar Memorial Lecture organised by the Telangana Academy of Sciences, she outlined urgent steps needed to build a heat‑ and climate‑resilient health system.
Dr Swaminathan urged rapidly expanding cities such as Hyderabad to adopt climate‑resilient building methods. “We are constructing more Metro lines, which is positive, but unless we significantly increase electric vehicles and rethink urban design, the health impacts of climate change will continue to rise,” she said. Calling for a Heat‑Resilient Health System for India, she recommended integrating heat preparedness into primary healthcare, setting up cool rooms in health facilities, redesigning clinical protocols to avoid misdiagnosis of heat‑related illnesses, and training health workers at all levels to respond to climate risks.
Heat resilience, she said, must be mainstreamed into national programmes covering maternal health, non‑communicable diseases and vector‑borne diseases. Dr Swaminathan emphasised that climate action must be gender‑transformative and community‑driven. “Climate action requires 100 per cent participation. Empowering women leads to better climate solutions,” she said, citing UN data that equal access to resources can raise women’s agricultural productivity by up to 30 per cent and significantly reduce hunger. She added that indigenous women possess valuable ecological knowledge crucial for conservation.
Presenting data, Dr Swaminathan said more than 57 per cent of Indian districts face high to very high heat risk, and urban areas can be 5°C to 10°C hotter than surrounding regions because of the urban heat island effect. Rising night‑time temperatures are especially dangerous as they prevent the body from recovering from daytime heat stress. Globally, heat‑related deaths now exceed 5.5 lakh annually, a figure she said is likely an underestimate.
Air pollution remains the largest environmental threat to human health, she warned, contributing to nearly seven million premature deaths every year. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) penetrates vital organs and is linked to heart disease, strokes, cancer and dementia. “Every 10 microgram reduction in PM2.5 can cut all‑cause mortality by 8.6 per cent,” she noted. Dr Swaminathan called for replacing the National Clean Air Programme with a stronger, science‑led National Clean Air Mission to achieve acceptable air quality within five years, expanding the focus beyond cities to entire airsheds and prioritising clean fuels, strict emission enforcement, better public transport, dust control, greening of cities and stronger pollution control boards.
Drawing parallels with the Covid‑19 pandemic, she said global crises demand global solutions. “Science, solutions and solidarity are essential. Science can solve these problems, but only if knowledge and benefits are shared equitably,” she said.
