The adaptation imperative: Subnational action and India’s heat challenge

India’s recent updates to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on climate action highlight the importance of local implementation measures for adaptation and disaster resilience. A key feature of this commitment is the focus on extreme heat, a widespread risk affecting health, livelihoods, and infrastructure across the country. At present, more than three-quarters (76%) of India’s population is at high or very high risk of extreme heat. Research confirms that this risk is increasingly shaped by compounding events—elevated daytime temperatures immediately followed by nighttime heat—which reduces a crucial coping window for the human body to cool down.

For the first time, the NDCs emphasise heat action plans (HAPs) and community-based preparedness as essential tools for climate resilience. The explicit mention of extreme heat as a core climate risk marks a qualitative shift from treating heat as a seasonal issue to a systemic, economy-wide development challenge requiring long-term planning, cross-sectoral coordination, and sustained public investment. While these developments are welcome, the situation on the ground needs the momentum of subnational machinery and action to deliver on improved climate preparedness.

Since South Asia’s first HAP, launched in Ahmedabad in 2013, there are now over 250 HAPs in operation across 23 heat-prone states. The interventions, awareness campaigns, and coordination between health agencies have been associated with a measurable reduction in heat-related mortality. However, a study found that only a few discuss funding sources and ask implementing departments to self-allocate resources—signalling serious funding constraints.


Even fewer HAPs include heat-health vulnerability assessments, crucial for identifying and supporting those least equipped to cope. Most focus on short-term emergency responses, such as hospital preparedness and heat advisories, overlooking long-term adaptation measures like nature-based solutions, water management, and livelihood protection. These gaps point to the need for deeper institutional capacity, sustained financing, and longer-term approaches that move beyond emergency response. Some states and cities are already demonstrating what effective action looks like.

Among good practices, cities like Chennai and Jaipur have begun incorporating urban greening and water-sensitive planning, though these approaches are not yet widespread. Nagpur has integrated heat resilience through cool roof programmes. Cities such as Ayodhya and Varanasi that witness pilgrim and tourist footfall in the millions annually have developed granular heat action plans to address floating populations. In Hyderabad, urban heat island mapping has informed localised cooling interventions, while Odisha has long combined cyclone and heat preparedness, demonstrating how multi-hazard planning can be institutionalised.

Furthermore, despite the mounting risk of extreme heat, the financing architecture for HAPs is yet to be robustly built. Research proposes mapping HAP interventions against existing state and central schemes to unlock latent funding at scale. Maharashtra offers an instructive model, with budget line items for heat preparedness appearing alongside flood and cyclone provisions. More recently, it announced the launch of the country’s first Centre of Excellence for Heat and Sustainable Cooling, being housed in Nagpur. Kerala has notified heatwaves as a local disaster, enabling access to up to 10% of state disaster response fund resources. States like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha have similarly classified heatwaves as local disasters under the 15th Finance Commission, enabling flexible funding without national-level notification. Earlier this year, the 16th Finance Commission recommended that heatwaves be included in the list of nationally notified disasters, a move that, if implemented, would unlock disaster preparedness funds at scale.

Equity remains central to the heat challenge. Intra-city temperature variation in Mumbai is severe—some slum areas are up to 6°C hotter than neighbouring middle-income areas. Nearly 80% of urban informal workers—construction workers, street vendors, and delivery personnel—face direct heat exposure yet remain under-represented in planning. Women experience higher heat stress due to household responsibilities, limited mobility, and occupational exposure. The next generation of HAPs must include targeted interventions informed by ward-level vulnerability assessments, incorporating housing quality, occupation, health status, mental health, and access to affordable cooling.

For HAPs, the next phase must strengthen data for decision-making, enhance financing mechanisms, and reinforce operational linkages at levels. To this end, artificial intelligence (AI) is already strengthening heat adaptation on the ground. Delhi’s 2025 HAP embeds AI and satellite data to create building-level vulnerability maps; collaborations with IIT Mandi and Resilience AI identify the hottest clusters, enabling neighbourhoods such as Vivekananda Camp to install reflective paints, shade structures, and drinking water points. Machine learning models can predict not just temperature spikes but also humidity and nighttime heat risks, enabling more precise alerts. The lesson from Delhi is that technology strengthens, rather than replaces, community action.

The NDCs’ emphasis on improved adaptation finance and the potential for international climate finance linked related to implementation can be leveraged to create dedicated heat resilience funding windows at the state level. Nationally, the National Disaster Management Authority of India is advancing operational frameworks aimed at making HAPs more locally owned, implementation-focused, and financially viable. Policy commitments are only meaningful when they reach the construction worker with no shade at the workplace, the family sleeping in a concrete room that traps daytime heat through the night, or the woman who cannot step away from her household when temperatures peak. That translation, from NDC to local implementations to protect lives and livelihoods, is the adaptation imperative that India can lead and excel in.

Sujata Saunik is the former Chief Secretary of Maharashtra, and Dipa Singh Bagai is the Country Director at NRDC India. Views are personal