India is using and satellites to map the vulnerability of urban heat up to the level of the building

“The more granular your data, the more you can target your answer,” adds Krishna. Instead of generic notices such as “drinking more water”, localized data could guide specific actions: modify market or factory hours, distribute cheap heat shelters or set oral rehydration solution stations in areas with high feet content. “If you know who is more vulnerable, you can act faster,” he adds.

But while Delhi crosses another burning summer, on a background of Rising Heat -related deaths and increasing climatic stress, many of the rescue measures already promised by the government, how to put 3,000 water refrigerators In public places, alterations of the construction times and construction of daytime shelters for outdoor and homeless workers –they still have to be performed.

This year, the heat seems even more unbearable for Zubaida. “My blood pressure decreases, I have a divide headache,” he says. The frequent and prolonged power cuts in its neighborhood also mean that there is little respite at home. “We need adequate shelter and a little shadow to work on.”

Part of the problem is that the heat action plans are not legally binding, says Tamanna Dalal, associated with senior research with the new collaboration for Futures sustainable based in Delhi, an environmental research organization. “The heat waves are not recognized as specific catastrophes of the state in most India,” he explains. “At this moment, only about eight states have formally declared heat waves as catastrophes. This means that local authorities are not obliged to prioritize the heat action unless they get direct guidelines on the quick response during the heat wave from higher levels.”

Also the national government does not recognize Heat waves as “notified” catastrophes, which means that they cannot trigger financial assistance pursuant to the management of the country’s catastrophes.

As a result, any measures are taken tend to be short -term and reactive. Temporary measures such as the school closures ordered by the Department of Education or by the oral rehydration of the health departments of the health departments are repeated every year. But these measures do nothing to build structural resilience for cities to adapt to the worsening of heat conditions.

Ultimately, it is a question of building more heat -resistant cities that can adapt and mitigate simultaneously, integrating heat with other political objectives such as. Such as energy, water, creation of jobs and air quality, explains Khosla.

Some of the financing courses already exist. “We discovered that 18 sponsored patterns at central level have direct links with long -term solutions listed in Haps, such as the water supply with pipe, the sun on the roof, etc.”, says Dalal. But many local officials don’t know that these resources are available. A recent amendment For India National Disaster Mitigation Fund, it now helps states to finance heat actions, but awareness remains very low. India is still in the early stages of heat planning in the country and the development of large -scale capabilities is urgently necessary to help actuators to see the heat as a chronic threat in a world of heating.

“We are soon reaching the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, which will be irreversible,” says Dalal, referring to the limit aimed at global warming established in the Paris agreement, that the world is almost certain to break. “This will have an impact on every aspect of our daily life. The next few years are fundamental in the implementation of some of the long -term solutions, because they take years to implement and even more time to have an impact”.