From warm nights to seismic shocks: Climate change is rewriting India’s public health future

Recent weather patterns across India offer compelling evidence that climate change is no longer a looming threat, it is a lived reality. Rising urban temperatures, increased seismic activity and environmental degradation demand not just policy responses but urgent behavioural and structural reforms. At the core of this crisis lies an inescapable truth: climate change has become a public health emergency.

This year’s World Health Day theme, Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures, reminds us that the health of our planet is inseparable from the health of our people. Climate-related disruptions are now directly threatening maternal and child health, food security, respiratory well-being, and access to essential services, particularly for those most vulnerable.

During the past winter, traditionally milder cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata experienced unusually warm days and nights. According to a March 2025 India Today analysis, Delhi’s average temperature increased by 0.12°C over the past decade. Mumbai and Chennai warmed by nearly 1°C, while Kolkata saw a 0.42°C rise. Though these figures may appear modest, they carry serious health implications, ranging from dehydration and respiratory illness to cardiovascular stress and pregnancy complications.

A 2024 study published in Nature reports that Indian cities are warming at an average rate of 0.53°C per decade, with urbanisation alone contributing 0.2°C. The urban heat island effect—driven by concrete expansion and declining green cover—has rendered cities significantly warmer than their rural surroundings, with consequences that disproportionately affect children, the elderly and the urban poor.

When the night offers no relief

Particularly alarming is the sharp rise in “warm nights”, where temperatures remain above 25°C. As documented by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2023, Indian cities experienced 718 such nights between 2014 and 2023, a 32% increase over the previous decade. The inability of the urban atmosphere to cool overnight intensifies public health risks, including sleep deprivation, maternal stress, and increased vulnerability among newborns and people with chronic illnesses.

Tremors across the region

Parallel to this warming trend is a troubling uptick in seismic activity across South Asia. In March 2025, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar with tremors felt over 600 miles away in Bangkok. The quake claimed over 3,000 lives and injured thousands. In Bangkok, a collapsing under-construction skyscraper killed at least 19 people, with 75 reported missing. A few months earlier, in November 2023, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in Nepal claimed over 150 lives, largely in remote communities with limited access to healthcare.

While such events are traditionally attributed to tectonic movement, emerging perspectives point to large-scale human interventions, such as deep mining, mega dam construction, and deforestation, as potential contributors to geophysical instability. These activities displace massive volumes of Earth’s mass, potentially affecting the planet’s centre of gravity. Although further study is needed, this theory adds to the growing body of evidence linking ecological disruption with structural vulnerability.

This concern aligns with the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (2021), which states unequivocally that human activity is the dominant driver of today’s accelerating climate crisis.

Rethinking development through a public health lens

India must now reflect critically on its development paradigm. According to the World Resources Institute, the country lost nearly 18 per cent of its tree cover between 2000 and 2020, much of it to infrastructure expansion in ecologically fragile regions. These losses compromise not only biodiversity but also the essential pillars of public health: clean air, safe drinking water and food security.

If we are to realise healthy beginnings and hopeful futures, our mitigation strategies must be rooted in equity and resilience. Individuals must adopt sustainable habits; communities must lead local environmental efforts; governments must enforce climate-sensitive regulation and invest in renewables; and businesses must embed sustainability into core strategy. Gujarat’s cool roofs initiative, where reflective paint helped reduce indoor heat in low-income settlements, exemplifies simple yet impactful climate-health interventions.

Climate change is not a theoretical debate. It is shaping daily realities, altering health outcomes, and threatening future generations. The heat is real. The quakes are real. And science is irrefutable.

As the Earth recalibrates, we must ask ourselves: will we respond in time, or leave behind a world too fragile for the very lives we vow to protect?

The author is Co-founder and CEO, DevInsights. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.