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By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

Hello,

Today’s newsletter focuses on the sweltering temperatures in India’s capital that have led to deaths, water shortages and animals collapsing.

At least 24 people died of suspected heat stroke in India’s eastern states of Bihar and Odisha on Thursday, authorities said, with the region gripped in a debilitating heat wave expected to continue until Saturday.

India has been experiencing a blisteringly hot early summer and a part of the capital Delhi recorded the country’s highest ever temperature at 52.9 degrees Celsius (127.22°F) this week, though that may be revised with the weather department checking the sensors of the weather station that registered the reading.

While temperatures in northwestern and central India are expected to fall in the coming days, the prevailing heat wave over east India is likely to continue for two days, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which declares a heat wave when the temperature is 4.5 C to 6.4 C higher than normal.

Television images showed people chasing water tankers or climbing on top of them in parts of the capital to fill containers amidst an acute water shortage that the government blames on low levels in the Yamuna River – Delhi’s primary source of water.

In the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, a policeman used CPR to revive a monkey that he said had fainted and fallen from a tree because of the heat, pumping its chest for 45 minutes, local media reported, and Delhi also saw cases of heatstroke among birds.

The country, which is nearing the end of multi-phase national elections, is not alone in experiencing unusually high temperatures. Billions across Asia are grappling with the heat and in neighboring Pakistan the temperature crossed 52 C (125.6 F) this week.

Scientists say this trend has been worsened by human-driven climate change.

India, the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has long held that, as a developing nation, it should not be forced to cut its energy-related emissions but has set a target of becoming a net-zero emitter by 2070.

1. Deaths from heat wave in eastern India 

A total of 14 people died in Bihar on Thursday, officials said, including 10 people involved in organizing the seven-phase national elections that are currently underway.

The deaths of 10 people were also reported in the government hospital in Odisha’s Rourkela region on the same day, authorities told Reuters, prompting the Odisha government to advise against outdoor activities between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. when temperatures peak. 

An elderly man, who according to medical officials suffers from heat exhaustion, is helped by hospital staff and a relative during a heat wave in Ahmedabad, India. REUTERS/Amit Dave

2. Rescue teams don’t expect to find survivors in Papua New Guinea landslide

Papua New Guinea ruled out finding survivors under the rubble of a massive landslide, with the exact number of dead under almost two storeys of debris and mud still unknown but ranging from hundreds to thousands of people.

“No bodies are expected to be alive under the debris at this point, so it’s a full recovery operation to recover any human remains,” Enga province disaster committee chairperson Sandis Tsaka told Reuters.

3. Rising seas force Panama Indigenous families to leave island homes

Rising sea levels due to climate change have forced an Indigenous Guna community to leave their homes on an island off Panama’s coast that is fast disappearing.

Some 300 families – 1,351 people – based in Gardi Subdug, a small Caribbean island a couple of kilometers off the Central American coastline, received keys on Wednesday to their new houses in a small woodland settlement on the mainland. Click here for the full Reuters story.

4. EU agrees to quit energy investment treaty over climate concerns

European Union countries unanimously agreed to quit an international energy treaty over concerns that it protects fossil fuel investments and undermines efforts to fight climate change, the Belgian EU presidency said.

5. Global shift to renewables slowed in 2023, policy group says

The global shift to renewables in major energy-consuming sectors slowed in 2023, hindered by regulatory gaps, political pressures and a failure to set clear targets, a policy group said. 

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war helped ambitions to shift to renewables amid growing concerns about energy security, but governments have failed to build on the momentum, an annual assessment by Paris-based REN21 group said.

Voters across India cast their ballots in the general election on issues ranging from the cost of living to jobs and religion. The residents of a tiny, ecologically-sensitive island, known as Ghoramara, have only one concern: Survival. Click here for the video or click here for the full Reuters special report. 

Developed countries achieved their pledge to provide $100 billion to help poorer countries cope with climate change in 2022, the OECD said, confirming the target was met two years late.

In 2009, developed countries promised that from 2020 they would transfer $100 billion a year to poorer nations buckling under the costs of worsening climate change-fuelled disasters.

They provided $115.9 billion in climate finance in 2022, meeting the goal for the first time, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report. The total also includes private finance mobilized by public funds.

1%

China aims to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of key industries by an amount equivalent to about 1% of the 2023 national total through efficiency gains in everything from steel production to transportation, according to a government plan. Click here for the full Reuters story.

Today’s Sustainable Switch Climate Focus was edited by Susan Fenton.

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