India Among Nations Most Vulnerable To Heat; Rapid Growth Of AC Making Its Climate Outlook Even Worse

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Vast swathes of India’s population remain reliant on AC for their physical and mental wellbeing. And the country’s more tropical southern regions remain hot year-round. Over the past five decades, the country has experienced more than 700 heat wave events claiming more than 17,000 lives, according to a 2021 study of extreme weather in the Weather and Climate Extremes journal. This June alone, temperatures in some parts of the country soared to 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit), killing at least 44 people and sickening hundreds with heat-related illnesses.

And by 2030, India may account for 34 million of a projected 80 million global job losses from heat stress, according to a World Bank report in December 2022. This puts millions of people at risk in a country where more than 50% of the workforce is employed in agriculture. And as incomes steadily rise, all while urban populations explode, AC ownership has grown at a remarkable rate.

Electricity consumption in India from cooling – which includes AC and refrigerators – increased 21% between 2019 and 2022, according to the IEA. By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners will exceed total electricity consumption in all of Africa today, it added. But this demand is also exacerbating the global climate crisis. Like refrigerators, many air conditioners today use a class of coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are harmful greenhouse gases. And even more problematically, air conditioners tend to use large amounts of electricity, generated by the burning of fossil fuels.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that – if not reined in – air conditioning-related greenhouse gas emissions could account for up to a 0.5 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures by the end of the century.

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https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/06/india/extreme-heat-india-climate-ac-intl-hnk/index.html