High Mortality Likely Due To Warming Risk To India

In News

A new research report has pointed out that warming across India would lead to a 10% increase in death rates.

In-Detail

The study was conducted by researchers at the Climate Impact Lab, a collaboration of researchers from Universities and organisations across the US.
It points out that warming across the country will lead to a 10% increase in death rates by the end of the century, amounting to an extra million and a half deaths.
Also, the research points out that such high-level mortality will occur if the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise as today.

The Analysis

The study is an analysis of trends in mortality due to the rise in temperatures in forty countries.
It adjusted the trends to future scenarios of people increasing their economic status and able to adapt to warming.

Death Stats

For the research, death statics of forty countries including India, Brazil, Chile, China, the European Union, Japan, the United States and others.
The data collected covers a range of climatic and economic conditions.
The researchers computed the extent to which exposure to increased heat would cause death. Such deaths could be due to heat strokes or cardiovascular risks.
As per the analysis, if GHG continues to rise unabated, India will see an increase of 4 degrees in temperature, from 24°Celsius today to 28°C by 2100.
Days with 35°C or above temperatures will triple from the current average of 5.1 to 15.8 by 2050 and 42.8 by 2100.

Risk to Odisha

In the country, currently, Punjab has the highest annual average temperatures.
But, as per the analysis, if currents trends in temperature continue, 16 states will see their annual average temperatures increasing more than that of Punjab.
The analysis points out that, Odisha will have the highest increase in deaths due to the maximum number of extremely hot days. It will be an increase to 48.05 days by 2100 than the 1.6 days of extreme hotness in 2010.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh will contribute to 64% of the excess death due to heat.

Conclusion

The report also suggests that if the emissions can be cut after peaking in 2040, deaths due to heat can drop to 10 per 1,00,000, a nearly 80% decline. All this only shows that we need to take drastic steps to cut our emissions before things go out of hand.