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WB: South Asia needs equitable cooling as heatwaves worsen
*** This spring, temperatures hit nearly 50 degree Celsius across India and Pakistan, while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka sweltered under unusually high heat
Without adequate cooling, these conditions undermine countries’ development. When blistering heat strikes South Asia, the poor and most vulnerable, suffer the worst impacts. When it is too hot to work, wages are lost, pushing families into cycles of poverty. School hours are cut short, depriving children of education and future opportunities, says a World Bank report.
It said: The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights that climate change is making heatwaves more likely. This spring, temperatures hit nearly 50 degree Celsius across India and Pakistan, while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka sweltered under unusually high heat. A study found that the heatwave across India and Pakistan was 30 times more likely this year than 100 years ago, due to climate change.
At home, where many people in South Asia live in inadequately ventilated buildings without access to cooling, extreme heat harms people’s health. Meanwhile, fragmented cold chain infrastructure leads to the loss of food and vaccines, putting nutrition and public health at risk.
The economic costs are staggering. With a large percentage of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) reliant on the heat-stressed shoulders of informal workers, extreme heat does not just jeopardise the health and livelihoods of the working poor, but also the economic productivity of the region. By 2030, lost labour due to rising heat and humidity could risk up to 4.5% of India’s GDP – approximately USD 150-250 billion. Pakistan and Bangladesh could suffer losses of up to 5% of their GDP.
As urban populations grow and temperatures rise across South Asia, so too does the demand for cooling. Keeping citizens cool while mitigating the environmental impacts – air conditioners and other cooling equipment release powerful greenhouse gases – is a challenge for governments across South Asia, which must prioritise cooling as a development strategy.
In 2019, India became one of the first countries in the world to launch a comprehensive cooling action plan – the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), an ambitious initiative to address the country’s cooling needs while reducing climate impacts. In June 2022, Bangladesh published its own National Cooling Plan, while in October last year Pakistan announced it will adopt one by 2026.
Take South Asia’s cities, for example, many of which are plagued by high levels of poverty and bad housing conditions. More than 200 million new homes need to be built in South Asia before 2050 to meet housing needs. This provides an opportunity to change the course of urban development in the region and adopt strategies that prioritise thermal comfort. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are responding to this challenge with affordable housing programmes.
In India, where 10 million new homes need to be built annually to keep up with housing demand, the government’s affordable housing scheme has the opportunity to incorporate nature-based solutions and passive cooling techniques – to prevent heat from building up within homes – into construction and urban planning. That means using climate-friendly insulation materials, like straw, combined with materials that have high thermal mass. According to World Bank Group analysis, space cooling in India alone presents a USD 1.5 trillion opportunity by 2040, of which USD 1.25 trillion is earmarked for residential buildings.
Opportunities to scale up affordable space-cooling technologies exist in housing schemes across the region. In Bangladesh, where the urban population grew from 31 million in 2000 to 65 million in 2020, the World Bank estimates that 250,000 new houses need to be built every year to meet existing shortages . In Pakistan, the government launched a housing programme in 2019 to provide five million housing units for poor and middle-income communities by 2030.
Scaling up high-efficiency common household appliances like brushless ceiling, or BLDC, fans can ensure comfort for millions of people. With ceiling fans among the fastest-selling appliances in the Asia-Pacific region, brushless fans require approximately 65% less energy than regular fans and help save around USD 20 per fan each year in household energy bills. This has been done before. India, for instance, has already seen the uptake of transformative energy-efficient technology at scale with nationwide bulk procurement and distribution of LED lightbulbs. Replicating the LED programme to create a viable market for other energy-efficient technologies like brushless fans also creates an opportunity for economic growth in the region.
The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) yesterday accused the government of seeking to use the proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PSTA) to suppress popular political activity, claiming that some of its provisions were more repressive than those of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
FSP Education Secretary Pubudu Jayagoda told a media briefing, in Nugegoda, that the definition of terrorism in the Bill was so broad that it could be used to label almost any form of popular political activity as terrorism.
He said the Bill’s approach to defining terrorism was based largely on attempts to compel a government, or an international organisation, to do, or refrain from doing something, rather than on internationally recognised criteria, such as killings, causing serious bodily harm, kidnapping or acts intended to spread terror among the public.
Jayagoda also alleged that the Bill transferred substantial powers from the judiciary to the executive, while extending powers of arrest, investigation and detention to the armed forces, in addition to the police.
He claimed that the government had sought to portray the Bill as a replacement for the PTA while retaining or introducing provisions that could facilitate political victimisation and repression.
The FSP also questioned the government’s decision to proceed with the Bill, despite having previously sought public views on an earlier draft.
Jayagoda said a draft had been published earlier this year, with the period for public submissions ending on February 28, but the Bill subsequently gazetted was essentially the same draft with some provisions rearranged.
Jayagoda also referred to a letter reportedly sent by Attorney-at-Law Saliya Peiris, a member of a Committee, chaired by President’s Counsel Rienzie Arsecularatne, that had been appointed to draft the legislation. He said Peiris had stated, in the October 06 letter, that changes had been made to the draft prepared by the Committee.
“This means that even the Committee, appointed to prepare the Bill, was a deception,” Jayagoda alleged.
He said that the PSTA was fundamentally similar to the Anti-Terrorism Bill introduced by the previous government, in 2023, which the National People’s Power (NPP) opposed and challenged in court.
“If the NPP opposed that Bill then and is now bringing the same legislation before Parliament, the government must explain its position,” he said.
Jayagoda called on NPP MPs to oppose the PSTA in Parliament and urged trade unions and other groups to build a broad public movement against the legislation.
He challenged the government to an open debate on the Bill.
Former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa was yesterday remanded until 13 October after being produced before the Colombo Magistrate’s Court following her arrest by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).
Shiranthi, wife of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was arrested at her residence on Poorwarama Road, Kirulapone, after CIABOC officers recorded a statement from her for nearly two hours.
According to the CIABOC, the arrest was made over allegations that Rs. 10 million obtained from the National Savings Bank through the Siriliya Saviya organisation was misappropriated.
The money was allegedly obtained to provide a Computed Tomography (CT) scanner to the children’s hospital. Investigators allege that the scanner was not provided and that the funds were instead unlawfully used.
CIABOC is investigating alleged offences under the Public Property Act and corruption-related provisions in connection with the transaction and other financial activities involving Siriliya Saviya, which was headed by Rajapaksa.
Rajapaksa returned to Sri Lanka on Monday night on a flight from Malaysia after travelling overseas for medical treatment. She left for Singapore on 16 September after being admitted to a private hospital in Colombo on 15 September following an illness.
She had been due to appear before the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) on 13 October in connection with its investigation into the financial affairs of Siriliya Saviya.
Meanwhile, her lawyers filed an anticipatory bail application before the Maligakanda Magistrate’s Court on Monday, seeking an order preventing her arrest in connection with the FCID investigation.
Former National Savings Bank (NSB) Chairman Pradeep Kariyawasam was yesterday granted bail by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court following his arrest by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).
Kariyawasam, husband of former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, was arrested in connection with the Bribery Commission’s investigation into the ‘Siriliya Saviya’ account linked to former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa.
The investigation concerns financial activities involving the Siriliya Saviya initiative, which was headed by Rajapaksa, wife of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
CIABOC is continuing investigations into the alleged financial irregularities relating to the account.
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