With Europe in the grip of an unusually intense heatwave, what can be learned from regions more used to extreme heat? Drawing on their research in South Asia Sohini Kar and Mahvish Shami argue that heat is not experienced equally, with informal workers and the poor in Pakistan and India both less likely to access heatwave services and more likely to have their livelihoods disrupted. 

This week most of Britain has been gripped by a heatwave which has seen numerous June records broken. The advice is to stay hydrated, seek shade and use fans if possible. Meanwhile in France, schools have been closed, events cancelled, rail services curtailed and alcohol consumption in public places have been banned. While this heatwave continues to grab headlines, it is no longer an isolated occurrence: heatwaves are becoming the new norm of our summers.

With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicting an increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, there are growing concern about the economic impacts of extreme heat due to climate change. Studies suggest economic losses of 8 per cent of GDP per capita per year in low-income countries, and 3.5 per cent in high income countries. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 70 per cent of the global workforce are exposed to extreme heat, facing occupational injuries attributable to extreme heat.

As conditions become too hot for work, there are growing concerns about safe temperatures. In Britain, unions have started to call for regulations on maximum working temperatures. As Europe starts to wonder what to do with extreme heat, what can we learn from the regions have already been faced with the challenges of extreme heat with greater intensity?

Lessons on heatwaves from South Asia

While historically hot, South Asia faces new challenges of extreme heat under climate change. Heatwaves now regularly bring temperatures to above 45C. Our ongoing research projects focused on Pakistan and India explore some of these challenges and how the experiences in these regions that face more frequent and prolonged heatwaves might shape our responses to extreme heat.

Pakistan

Heatwaves are a reoccurring phenomenon in Pakistan and have in recent years been declared a national emergency. In 2015 Karachi – one of the largest cities in the country – saw temperatures rise to 49 degrees in a heatwave that killed around 1,300 people. Since then, heatwaves have increased in intensity and frequency. In Jacobabad, Sindh, temperatures rose to a level in 2021 that was deemed hotter than what the human body can handle.  This year temperatures rose above 46 degrees as early as mid-April.

Heatwaves now fall under the purview of the disaster management authorities which draw up heat action plans. The advice from these agencies, much like in Britain, is to stay hydrated, seek shade and find ways to cool down. To assist with this, the government has set up cooling centres in cities (known as “heat stabilisation camps” or “shaded centres”) where fans and water is available. Moreover, schools have been shut early as classrooms become too hot.

But not everyone is able to heed this advice or take advantage of the cooling centres. For a vast majority of the Pakistani labour force following this advice means being unable to feed their families. Staying indoors is not an option for those working in the informal sector, which according to the ILO makes up around 88 per cent of the workforce. Thus providing informal workers easier access to shade could mitigate some of the dangers of extreme heat.

India
In 2024 the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi established the country’s first heatstroke unit to address the growing crisis of heat-related illnesses. Most patients were reported to be men working either outdoors or in unregulated factories. With the majority of the Indian workforce in the informal sector, there is little recourse to worker protections in such conditions. And while municipalities have increasingly established comprehensive extreme heat warning systems known as Heat Action Plans (HAPs), many focus on work-stoppage to mitigate the effects of extreme heat on workers. As with the COVID-19 pandemic, however, work stoppage means the loss of income for the country’s poor, informal workers. The trade-off is between sustaining daily wages and working in unsafe conditions.

One result of this has been a growth in parametric insurance products designed to address the loss of livelihoods during heatwaves. In 2023 Blue Marble, an impact insurance company, launched an insurance product with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and Arsht-Rock (since renamed Climate Resilience Centre). Designed for informal women workers in forms of employment that face outdoor heat exposure, such as garbage pickers, waste collectors and recyclers, the parametric insurance would offer payouts on days when thresholds exceeded workable conditions. In 2024 the Women’s Climate Shock and Insurance and Livelihoods Initiative (WCS) was launched by Climate Resilience for All (since renamed HERA) and SEWA, leading to payouts in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Along with the impact-based insurance programmes, Indian insurance giant Bajaj Allianz launched its Climate Safe Insurance in 2025, which includes coverage for extreme heat.

The growth of this parametric insurance sector reflects the need to address the gap between prevention of heat-related health impacts and the loss of livelihoods. In the absence of state-based social protections, private sector insurance has become a way for workers to find compensation for lost wages. However, there remain questions about the extent to which such financial compensation is sufficient to address the loss of income, inclusive of the poor and ultimately the sustainability of such insurance mechanisms. Lessons emerging from the experiments in parametric insurance in India can help to understand whether and to what extent the demands for work stoppage can be balanced with compensation for livelihood losses.

Unequal heat

Our research in South Asia confirms previous findings that heat is not experienced equally; rather, existing socio-economic inequalities are reproduced in the experience of heatwaves. In South Asia, with large informal economies, the inequalities are not only in terms of exposure but also the impact on livelihoods. Grater provision and access to cooling infrastructures, such as shade and income protection measures such as insurance are places to start in consideration for closing these gaps. With growing precarious and zero-contracts labour forces in Europe, these questions emerging from the informal economies of the global south remain prescient when faced with the recurrence of heatwaves.

This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics. You are agreeing with our comment policy when you leave a comment. 

Image credit: Soumyabrata Roy provided by Shutterstock.

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