“This is a big concern, and it also shows the heat divide” between the poor and wealthy, said Abhiyant Tiwari, a climate expert with NRDC India and part of the group conducting the research in Ahmedabad.Following the 2010 tragedy, city officials, with help from public health and heat experts, devised an action plan to warn citizens when the heat is at dangerous levels and prepare city hospitals to respond rapidly to heat-related illness. The plan has been replicated across India and other parts of South Asia.The last two years have been the world’s hottest ever, and researchers hope their work can provide an additional line of defense for those who bear the brunt of increasing heat.Finding solutions to deal with heatThe Ahmedabad study is only one part of a global research project examining how heat is affecting poor, vulnerable communities in four cities across the world. Researchers also are measuring heat impacts using smartwatches and other devices in Africa’s Burkina Faso, the Pacific island of Niue near New Zealand and in the Sonoran desert region in Mexico.More than 1.1 billion people — about one-eighth of the world’s population — live in informal settlements and poor neighborhoods that are particularly vulnerable, said Aditi Bunker, environmental health researcher associated with the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Heidelberg University, Germany, who is leading the global project.”Climate change and heat are ravaging populations. And now the question comes, what are we doing to address this?” she said, referring to the motivation behind the research.
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