Indians faced nearly 20 heatwave days in 2024 on average: Lancet report

People in India each experienced nearly 20 heatwave days in 2024 on average, of which about six-and-a-half days would not be expected were it not for climate change, according to a new global report published by The Lancet journal.

Estimates suggest that an exposure to heat in 2024 resulted in a loss of 247 billion potential labour hours per year -- a record high of nearly 420 hours per person -- and 124 per cent more than that during 1990-1999.

The agriculture sector accounted for 66 per cent, and construction sector for 20 per cent of the losses in 2024, according to the '2025 Report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change'.

A reduced capacity of labour due to the extreme heat is associated with a potential loss of income of $194 billion in 2024, it said.

An international team of 128 experts from 71 academic institutions and UN agencies, led by University College London, were involved in producing the ninth edition of the report.

Published ahead of the 30th UN Conference of the Parties (COP30), the report provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the connections between climate change and health, they said.

They added that a continued over reliance on fossil fuels and failure to adapt to climate change is costing people's lives, health, and livelihoods, with 12 of 20 indicators tracking health threats reaching unprecedented levels.

Heat-related deaths have surged 23 per cent since the 1990s, to 546,000 a year, while the average spread potential of dengue has risen by up to 49 per cent globally since the 1950s, the team said.

"In 2024, people in India were exposed to 19.8 heatwave days each, on average. Of these, 6.6 days of exposure would not have been expected to occur without climate change," they wrote in a country-related data sheet, accompanying the report.

Further, during 2020-2024, an average of 10,200 deaths per year in India could be traced to PM2.5 pollution from forest fires -- an increase of 28 per cent from rates during 2003-2012, it said.

Human-caused PM2.5 pollution was responsible for more than 17 lakh deaths in 2022 -- up by 38 per cent since 2010 -- with use of fossil fuels such as coal and liquid gas contributing to 44 per cent of the deaths, the report said.

Use of petrol for road transport contributed to 2.69 lakh deaths, it said.