It surveys nine major metro cities and identifies short-term and long-term emergency measures to mitigate rising heatwaves. These cities – Bengaluru, Delhi, Faridabad, Gwalior, Kota, Ludhiana, Meerut,Mumbai and Surat – together make up over 11 percent of India’s urban population, according to Census 2011, and are some of India’s most at-risk cities for future heat. The report finds that the surveyed cities focus on immediate responses to heat waves, while long-term actions remain rare. Even where they do exist, they are poorly targetted.The report recommends urgent institutional changes to measures, including assessing vulnerability and identifying urban heat islands, building the capacity of health staff and implementers of the heat action plan, and investing in technology to provide energy-efficient cooling devices.However, the report also underlined barriers to implementing the heat wave mitigation action plan. It states that ‘coordination problems among institutions’ emerged as the top barrier, followed by competing priorities limiting the focus on heat. Around 14% of surveyed people said they do not see heat as a problem.The study used different climate models to identify the nine cities with a recent rise in dangerous heat index values and a population above one million. For analysis, interviews were conducted with city, district, and state government officials responsible for implementing heat actions in these cities.
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