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IRADe organized 2 side events, a UNFCCC side event on “Locally Determined Choices for Nationally Determined Contributions- Addressing Heat Equity through Vulnerable community focused Heat Adaptation Plans”, held on 8th November 2022 and an India Pavilion Side event on “Climate Adaptive Heat Stress Action Plans for Vulnerable Communities”, held on 10th November 2022. IRADe also displayed an exhibit on “Electric Vehicles: Charging Patterns and Impacts on DISCOMS” at CoP27 , Sharm El Sheikh.
IRADe UNFCCC side event on “Addressing Heat Equity through Vulnerable community focused Heat Adaptation Plans” , 8th November 2022
Integrated Research and Action for Development was selected to organize a UNFCCC side event on “Locally Determined Choices for Nationally Determined Contributions- Addressing Heat Equity through Vulnerable community focused Heat Adaptation Plans”, @ COP 27 Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
Session Chair:
Dr Linda Anne Stevenson, Head of Knowledge Management and Scientific Affairs at the APN Secretariat
Opening Remarks:
Dr Jyoti Parikh, Executive Director, IRADe
Inaugural Remarks:
Mr Santiago Alba Corral, Director, Climate-Resilient Food Systems program, IDRC
Lead Presentation:
Mr Rohit Magotra, Deputy Director IRADe.
Panelists:
Ms Bijal Brahmbhatt , Director, Mahila Housing Trust (MHT)
Ms Rajeswari Gorana, Consultant , Mahila Housing Trust
Dr Jyoti Parikh, welcomed the panelists, she shared about IRADe's work as an independent research-based think tank in the areas of Sustainable Urban Development, Energy & Power systems, Climate change and Environment, Poverty Alleviation & Gender, Agriculture & food security which are some of the challenges of the 21st century. IRADe has been working on the aspects of Climate mitigation, adaptation, and negotiations for last 20 years. She highlighted that Climate Change is becoming bigger and complex and therefore actions are required at home, ward, Municipal, state, regional, National and International levels.
Dr Linda Anne Stevenson, welcomed the panelists. She set the context of the session and informed about IRADe's work on Climate Adaptive Gender Sensitive Heat Action Plans in South Asia. She added that APN supported this project to address the gaps in the research around heat waves and it’s impacts in South Asia. She highlighted that heat stress will drive more inequality in developing countries of the world so there is a need to focus on the impacts of heat stress on vulnerable communities, their heat adaptation needs, and solutions to address heat Equity from Global South and North.
Mr Santiago Alba Corral gave the inaugural remarks. He shared information about IDRC initiatives on a balanced portfolio of research training policy, influencing public awareness in particular. He quoted IPCC reports on rising global temperature and severity of heat waves. The severity of heat waves is rising and it is affecting cities more due to the Urban Heat Island Effects. He appreciated extraordinary impact of IRADe work on IDRC funded project on Climate adaptive action plans to manage heat stress in Indian cities of Rajkot, Bhubaneshwar & . He cited that the project influenced policy not only at at municipal level but also at state, national and regional level. The project created impact on systems, processes, capacity building tools and building Early Warning systems for building preparedness of the Urban Local Bodies. The rising global temperature is increasing the amount of severity of heat waves in India. The severity of heat waves is rising and it is affecting cities more due to the Urban Heat Island Effects. Incidents of heat stress are becoming more frequent, intense and longer. Heat Action Plans should be focused on vulnerable populations especially low Income Groups in the cities.
Mr Rohit Magotra, presented about the scale of the impacts of heat stress globally. His presentation focused on impacts of heat stress on vulnerable communities, heat adaptation needs and solutions to address heat equity. He quoted that heat stress induced deaths in 2100 are estimated to be 100 per 10000 in lower income groups. Lost productivity from heat stress is valued at 4.2 Trillion USD by 2030. Lost Productivity and health impacts of heat stress will drive more inequality in developing countries of the world. He shared methodology about design and implementation of ward level gender sensitive heat action plans in the cities of Rajkot, Bhubaneshwar and Delhi. Heat Action Plans need to be focused on vulnerable communities and equity issues are important to be addressed as low Income groups living in urban slums are most vulnerable to heat stress.
Ms Bijal Brahmbhatt talked about Heat Adaptation solutions for the vulnerable poor. MHT's Research found that Inadequate roofing material like tin, cement leads to an increase of 5-6 degree temperature in the houses as compared to outside temperature. Communication is an important factor to understand the issues of vulnerable communities. They themselves need to assess and understand the vulnerabilities related to heat like loss in productivity, livelihood and health issues. She talked about the Cool roof initiatives undertaken by MHT and the communities. Due to certain community interventions, the results in India are very impressive as there has been a decline in heat related mortality and morbidity rates. Early Warning system and heat wave forecasts have also improved and there has been an awareness in the communities regarding Heat prevention
Ms Rajeswari Gorana, shared MHTs on-ground experiences on Heat Stress. Heat action plans should be an extension and not limiting. Heat action plans do need to broaden their scope and include greener areas - much cooler and less carbon emissions. For vulnerable poor communities, affordability, adequacy and willingness of a solution is really important. There is a need of behavior change in communications for the communities as well as the solution providers. She also cited the need of market based solutions which can be scaled for broader impacts for addressing heat equity.
The session ended with a vote of thanks from the chair, Dr Linda Anne Stevenson.
(From L-R: Mr Santiago Alba Corral, Ms Bijal Brahmbhatt, Ms Rajeswari Gorana, Dr Linda Anne Stevenson)
IRADe India Pavillion side event on “Climate Adaptive Heat Stress Action Plans for Vulnerable Communities”
Integrated Research and Action for Development, organized side event on “Climate Adaptive Heat Stress Action Plans for Vulnerable Communities”, at India Pavilion @ COP 27 on 10th November 2022
Panelists:
Prof. Kirit Parikh, Chairman, IRADe
Dr. J. R. Bhatt, Senior Advisor, MoEFCC, GoI
Mr. Rohit Magotra Deputy Director, IRADe
Dr. S C Bhan, Scientist F, IMD.
Dr JR Bhatt:
Dr Bhatt chaired the session and cited that extreme events are rising in frequency, duration, and impact. Because of the changing climatic regime, heat waves are rising and are likely to rise. Heat action plan is a comprehensive early warning system, and preparedness for extreme heat leads to immediate and longer-term actions to increase preparedness, information sharing and response coordination to reduce the health impacts of extreme heat on vulnerable populations and the ecosystem.
National Disaster Management Authority and the India Meteorological Department have developed Frameworks for 23 States prone to high temperatures leading to heatwave conditions to develop heat action plans. This session is focused on highlighting the success of the initiatives of Govt of India to devise and implement Heat Action Plans. IRADe work on developing Climate Adaptive Heat Action Plans furthered contributed to enhance preparedness at city and state level and reduce negative impacts of the heat stress.
Dr Kirit Parikh
He introduced work of IRADe as a non-governmental, non-profit making think tank that does policy research in the areas of Sustainable Urban Development, Energy & Power systems, Climate change and Environment, Poverty Alleviation & Gender, and Agriculture & food security, which are some of the challenges of the 21st century. Our focus is on multidisciplinary perspective involving multi-stakeholders to suggest implementable policy solutions. He talked about many projects of IRADe on net zero, sustainability and vulnerability studies, clean energy transitions, Regional connectivity of power trading between India, Nepal, Bangladesh Bhutan, and Climate adaptation.
Extreme events make people, especially the poor, vulnerable because they often live in congested slums and have almost no coping mechanisms. Talking about IDRC funded Heat Stress Action Plan project, he mentioned that IRADe not only looked at the risk of heat stress at the city level but also at the ward level in three Indian cities of Rajkot, Bhubaneshwar & New Delhi.
Mr Rohit Magotra
His presentation showcased the Govt of India's adaptation strategies for designing and implementing heat action plans for states, districts and cities. IRADe provided details of designing adaptive heat action plans framework for developing vulnerable communities focused heat action plans in the cities of Rajkot, Bhubaneshwar and New Delhi Municipal Council. The sessions also showcased the framework for developing climate adaptive Heat Action Plans (HAPs) focused on vulnerable communities and shared success stories of heat adaptation plans in India and the lessons learnt for strengthening the heat resilience of the cities. Irade has developed and implemented climate-adaptive and gender-sensitive Ward levels.
Heat waves have become a global phenomenon. In South Asia, the situation is worsening further due to climate change. IRADe developed the 'Climate Adaptive Heat Action Plan for Indian Cities' supported by International Development Research Centre(Canada) in collaboration with Urban Local bodies, India Meteorological Department and National/State Disaster Management Authorities developed the first ward-level heat action plan framework in South Asia. National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) GoI instituted a national framework for heat action plans and released guidelines in 2016 for state governments and city administrations to follow. NDMA has engaged more than 120 cities and districts to design and develop heat action plans in India. This has helped Indian cities decrease heat-related mortality significantly from 1274 persons (2010) to 79 persons (2022).
Dr SC Bhan
He highlighted IMD's role in Heat Adaptation in India. Heat waves are expanding over India and other parts of the globe in terms of intensity, in terms of geographic distribution and also in terms of duration. IMD has implemented a system to provide weather forecasts for different temporal scales. IMD has also put in place a system of extended forecasts where weather forecasts in terms of the high temperatures over different parts of the country at a weekly scale are provided. These longer time scales have helped the cities and states to activate their systems in case a heat wave is expected so that they can review the preparedness well in time and generate alerts. IMD has a system of providing daily weather forecasts for the next seven days for more than one thousand cities and 712 districts in the country. The entire temperature forecast system is on a GIS platform for easy access. IMD works closely with the National Disaster Management Authority, Ministry of Health, and knowledge centres like IRADe, the Public Health Foundation of India, Indian Institute of Public Health in different parts of the country.
The thresholds at which the adverse need not be confined only to mortality but also need to extend to livelihoods. The heatwave action plan of India is a success story, but still, much work needs to be done so that more lives can be saved. IMD is coordinating and collaborating with multiple expert agencies and taking the knowledge to different stakeholders for actual actions when heat waves happen.
IRADe’s exhibit on “Electric Vehicles: Charging Patterns and Impacts on DISCOMS”
IRADe displayed an exhibit at the COP27 on Electric Vehicles from 10th -12th November. The exhibit showcased research work on EV charging patterns in Delhi & Impact of EV charging on the DISCOMs of Delhi. EVs have zero emissions compared to conventional vehicles as they do not directly emit GHGs and other air pollutants to the environment. it can play a significant role in meeting global goals on climate change. One of the important stakeholders in the EV ecosystem is the DISCOMs as they would primarily be responsible for preparing the charging infrastructure to support large-scale EV penetration. Hence it is important for DISCOMs to plan in advance and estimate the impact on the grid due to charging of EV vehicles in the long run in 2030 and beyond. Planning of charging infrastructure for long term EV growth would also require an assessment of EV growth under various scenarios. This would require identifying factors and policies that impact EV growth. The exhibit illustrated the results from the sample survey carried out in Delhi that assessed the user behaviour and experience of early adopters and Prospective consumers of EVs in Delhi and estimated the impact of EV charging on Delhi’s power demand and the hourly load on the local grid. The project is supported by Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation.
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