Tamil Nadu heatwave policy is only a start Premium

Tamil Nadu heatwave policy provides short-term relief but lacks long-term measures

In October, the Tamil Nadu government notified extreme heat as a State-specific disaster. As things stand, the decision is good because it allows those at risk of heat-related morbidity or mortality to avail institutional mechanisms and recompense in the event of a deadly heatwave. This expands the State’s responsibility to guarantee public welfare to the new and unique threats posed by climate change. But there are also reasons to wait and watch.

First, the gazette notification says the government will provide “medical care including supply of oral rehydration solution packets” and “drinking water in water kiosks”. These are incentives in the policy, but there are no sanctions should the State fail to act appropriately or in the event that these measures are deemed insufficient.

The next paragraph in the notification is more illuminating: that a heat-related death is diagnosed “based on a history of exposure to high ambient temperature and the reasonable exclusion of other causes of hyperthermia”. Further, “diagnosis shall be established from the circumstance surrounding the death, investigative reports concerning environmental temperature, and/or measured ante-mortem body temperature at the time of collapse”.

Estimates of a heatwave’s deadliness are typically based on the extent to which the ambient temperature deviates from the historical average at a specific location and the number of lives lost during and because of the heatwave. This is a tricky, even devious, combination as illustrated by the accompanying rider: “to the reasonable exclusion of other causes of hyperthermia”.

Editorial | Sun signs: On extreme heat and Tamil Nadu’s policy decision

A heatwave injures and/or kills by first pushing more vulnerable people over the edge; the less vulnerable are further down the line. The new policy is presumably designed to help the State catch those whose risk exposure the State has not been able to mitigate in time. However, the goal should be to altogether reduce the number of people requiring such catching. The policy lacks the instruments to guide the State toward this outcome.

This detail serves as a crucial reminder: this is well begun, and well begun is half done. But bearing in mind governments’ penchant for taking isolationist views of how climate change affects the people, there is value in keeping what remains pending in sight.