Heat waves: 75 billion hours of work lost in India in 2017

India has lost 75 billion hours of work in 2017 because of heat waves that make outdoor work extremely difficult for lakhs, says new study that assesses country vulnerabilities in the face of rising temperatures.

Indian losses account for about 49% of the global labor loss and nearly 39 million people who do not work at all in 2017, or 7% of the total labor force in India.

Rising temperatures are a health risk at work and, as temperatures rise steadily above physiological limits, prolonged work becomes more difficult, if not impossible.

In 2017, 153 billion hours of work were lost due to heat exposure, an increase of 62 billion hours compared to the loss in 2000. Most losses were recorded in India in South-East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. are already vulnerable.

About 80% of these losses were recorded in the agricultural sector (122 billion hours lost), 17.5% in the industrial sector (27 billion) and 2.5% in the service sector (4 billion), indicates the study published in November. 28 newspaper number Lancet.

The results are published a few days before the United Nations Climate Summit in Poland, where the world must finalize the regulation for the implementation of the emissions reduction targets set in Paris three years ago.

"Vulnerability to extreme heat has been steadily increasing worldwide since 1990, resulting in heavy losses for national economies and the household budget," said Joachim Rocklöv, a professor at the University of California. University of Umea, Sweden, and one of the authors of the research paper.

"The most vulnerable people to heat-related risks are the elderly (especially in urban areas), who have weakened heat defense capabilities, as well as workers exposed to hot environments like the" heat ". agriculture, building and manufacturing, "said Nick Watts, executive director of Lancet Countdown, a multidisciplinary research collaboration between academic centers around the world, which tracks the link between climate change and health.

"People with pre-existing conditions such as neurological and psychiatric diseases, heart disease, lungs, kidneys and diabetes are vulnerable to heat waves," said Watts, a member of the Institute for Global Health's University College London. DH.

In the past, Indian meteorologists had warned that heat waves would become more intense and more frequent in the future. In 2015, heat waves killed nearly 2,000 people in India.

Globally, 157 million vulnerable people have been exposed to heatwaves worldwide in 2017 and 153 billion hours of work have been lost due to heat exposure.