Judy: Extreme heat is gripping
large parts of India and
Pakistan, affecting hundreds of
millions of people in one of the
most densely populated parts of
the world.
Temperatures in India's capital
rose above 100 again today. Fred
de Sam Lazaro reports from
India.
>> May is the hottest month in
India a time when schools are
out and kids learn various ways
to cope with the stifling heat
like sharing this muddy pond
with the water Buffalo.
>> It is too hot inside, the
water has stopped coming to our
house. My mother told me go to
pond and take a bath.
>> For many mothers, the daily
routine makes it difficult to
escape
>> It's really hot here. When I
cook, I get flashes of heat from
the stove. It's hot even in the
shade.
>> Temperatures like these are
not unusual for may. But this
year they came early really
early and across a much wider
swath of the country
>> It is the hottest April in
122 years, March was the hottest
March in 122 years
>> I met urmi Goswami, a
journalist covering climate
issues for India's economic
times, in one of the Delhi's
poorer neighborhoods.
>> It is getting hotter, you're
building more and more cars on
the street, there are all kinds
of other things that are
happening, water stress is
increasing. So clearly, the
factors that add to your
discomfort are growing
I mean, look around, the housing
that you see, its not really
conducive to any weather
>> Only about one in ten Indian
households have access to air
conditioning, but the sharp
spike in electricity demand due
to the heatwave has caused
rolling blackouts.
That stops the ceiling fans
sometimes for hours each day the
one coping mechanism for many
lower income people.
The heat has been particularly
stressful for those who labor
outdoors
>> I was working every day last
week, even though it was making
me sick, my eyes were getting
red, that's why I stopped
working today.
>> It's hard to measure the full
toll on human health from all of
this heat. Several dozen deaths
have been reported as a direct
result of heatstroke.
But that doesn't take into
account the many deaths that go
unrecorded, and long term
consequences of sustained heat
exposure, like cardiovascular
disease, respiratory distress,
and liver and kidney failure.
The government has implemented
early weather warnings that have
allowed local municipalities to
provide shelter, water and
relief.
But for many day laborers in
India's economy, to get paid,
they have to go to work.
>> It's severely hot. If I work
10 minutes, I have to sit for
half an hour to take rest. It's
so severely hot, I feel like I
could faint.
>> Extreme heat more than
anything else impacts
productivity. And that itself is
an issue when it comes to
economic output
>> That's especially true--and
worrying in agriculture, where
the searing temperatures damaged
this spring's wheat crop
at this market just outside
Delhi, farmer raghubir Singh
Khatri showed us the difference
between this year's crop and the
last year's.
>> If it wasn't for the extreme
heat in March, we would have had
20% more harvest.
The grains are smaller this
year. If temperatures were
cooler, they would have looked
bigger, like these.
>> That definitely has an impact
on the quality of the production
and the nutrition aspect of the
wheat. And, and I think that
will affect the sale value of
the crop itself.
>> Surichi bhadwal, a climate
scientist at the energy and
resources institute in Delhi,
says there's no imminent danger
of food shortages. India still
has substantial reserve stocks
and a free food distribution for
low income households that began
during the pandemic.
But as India and so many
countries lurch from one extreme
weather event to the next,
bhadwal says these become ever
louder warnings of a climate
catastrophe absent global action
to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
>> No country is spared from the
ill effects of the consequences
of climate change whether it's
floods, cyclones, or tornadoes,
or storm surges or heat waves,
you know, today we are facing
it, we do need very stringent
action. To make sure that we are
not converting this world into
an uninhabitable place to live.
>> Yet India's heatwave
illustrates the difficulties
countries face in living up to
their coals to transition to
cleaner energy, says journalist
Goswami.
>> Look what happens as the
first sign of a crisis. You go
running back to what you know
best to meet your demand. What
you can do quickly --
>> Which is coal.
>> Which is coal! Uh, is it is
the transition easy? No. Is it
necessary? It's essential. It's
critical.
>> Today 70% percent of India's
power supply comes from coal and
it's had to step up production
and imports of the polluting
fuel to cope with the surge in
heatwave driven demand.
On a more hopeful note, the June
monsoon is forecast to be normal
this year. For a billion people
across the subcontinent, June
and that rain cannot come
quickly enough.
For the pbs newshour, I'm Fred
de Sam Lazaro in New Delhi.
Judy: And a note that Fred's
reporting is in partnership with
the under-told stories project
at the university of St. Thomas