Commentary
By Kayly Ober
US Institute of Peace

Unprecedented heat waves continue to ravage Asia this year. Temperatures have climbed to highs of 45 degrees Celsius in Myanmar, 44.5 degrees Celsius in India and 41.9 degrees Celsius in China, with Thailand and Laos breaking all-time high records.

Last year also saw “unprecedented” heat waves — making them not so unprecedented after all. In 2022, India and Pakistan both reached 45 degrees Celsius, breaking a 122-year-old record. China saw a heat wave that lasted more than 70 days, with sustained temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius.

It is likely that the climate crisis is supercharging heat waves in Asia, with recent studies finding that climate change is making the region at least 2 degrees Celsius hotter and heat waves 30 times more likely.

While countries are scrambling to address more frequent heat waves, they are already having a massive impact on both human security and geopolitics in the region. However, addressing impacts today could help to head off the worst effects and enable a more sustainable and peaceful regional future.

Heat waves combined with humidity can be dangerous for a human body’s “wet-bulb temperature.” Scientists estimate that a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees Celsius — or 95 degrees Fahrenheit at 100 percent humidity, or 115 degrees Fahrenheit at 50 percent humidity — would be beyond the point at which the human body can cool itself through perspiration. High wet-bulb temperatures are of particular concern in countries such as India, where people live in rural areas without access to air conditioners or cooling stations.

In addition, early heat waves, as have occurred in 2022 and this year, can take a particularly dangerous toll. This is because a rapid shift in temperature means that human bodies are not able to slowly acclimatize to higher temperatures. This puts the most vulnerable, such as adults older than 65, children under the age of one, outdoor and agricultural workers, houseless people and pregnant people, among others, especially at risk for dehydration, heat illness and, ultimately, death.

Dozens are reported to have died from heat stroke in India so far this year. Last year, heat waves led to at least 90 deaths across India and Pakistan. Some scientists believe that extreme heat has killed upward of 24,000 people in India since 1992.

Heat waves and subsequent droughts have been especially detrimental to the agricultural sector.
Already, India’s rapeseed production has taken a hit in 2023, despite a record planting, as yields were curtailed by frost and a heat wave in key producing areas. Juxtapose this with the impacts of last year’s heat waves: An extremely hot and dry March resulted in an output that was far below projections. Overall, this led to a 3 percent drop in wheat production in India in 2022.

This same pattern prevailed in Pakistan. In 2022, heat waves curtailed Pakistan’s wheat production by nearly 3 million tons or a 15 percent decrease from 2021. These effects, alongside a global fertilizer shortage and delayed government response of raising the minimum support price for wheat, meant that the average Pakistani farmer struggled to earn a living wage.

These successive heat wave events and their effects on rural livelihoods may also have implications for migration. For example, studies find that in Pakistan, heat stress consistently increases the long-term migration of men, driven by a negative effect on farm and non-farm income. Some predictions estimate that there could be as many as 62 million people in South Asia moving internally by 2050 due to slow-onset impacts, including drought.

From 2020 to 2021, farmers in India protested new farming legislation, which they thought would leave them at the mercy of greedy corporations. Farmers led demonstrations in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, among others; marched on Delhi; and organized blockades of borders, roads and train lines. Protests continued until December 2021, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government repealed the farm bills. In August 2022, farmers returned to Delhi to protest the perceived inability of the government to follow through on its promises. While these renewed protests were not publicly linked to recent heat waves and bad crop yields, it is clear that the impacts have put farmers under greater strain and in debt.

Increasing intensity and frequency of heat waves may continue to stoke grievances. Increasing heat may also have implications for violence and conflict in the region. One study finds a coincidence rate of 9 percent for armed conflict outbreaks and disaster occurrences such as heat waves or droughts. This analysis also reveals that about 23 percent of conflict outbreaks in ethnically highly fractionalized countries robustly coincide with climate-related impacts. Some theorize this is because hot temperatures may have a negative effect on people’s comfort, emotions and decision-making abilities. This may be even more true in cities, where some researchers find that during warmer months, the likelihood that urban disorder has lethal consequences is several times greater than the likelihood that it is peaceful.

This year, electricity grids buckled under intense use of air conditioners and refrigeration, and blackouts became common across Asia. This echoes last year’s heat wave challenges. In India, electricity demand hit a record high in April 2022, with a surge in the use of air conditioning triggering the worst power crisis in more than six years, forcing India to backpedal on a policy to cut down on coal imports. While Indonesia remained the top supplier of coal to India in 2022, Russia overtook the United States to be its fourth-largest supplier.

India was not the only one eyeing a closer relationship with Russia to ameliorate energy concerns. Last year, China also turned to Russia for coal to overcome energy demands not being met by hydropower stations during its summer drought. In fact, China was the largest importer worldwide of Russian coal, hitting a five-year high of 8.54 million tons in August 2022. And their demand looks set to continue in 2023. This year, Russian imports of coal to China hit 8.8 million tons in April.

The impact of heat waves and drought on the wheat crop in South Asia had ripple effects for the global wheat supply. This was because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest exporters of the grain, in February 2022 massively disrupted production and distribution. Food supplies were particularly threatened in Middle Eastern and African countries, which import a sizable amount of Ukrainian grain. Coupled with the heat waves and drought in Asia, global food prices spiked. By May 2022, the price of wheat rose more than 60 percent.

During this time, the government of India banned private exports of wheat. This scuttled the government’s plans to capitalize on the global disruption to wheat supplies from the war and find new markets for its wheat in Europe, Africa and Asia. The country also found itself with an ever-shrinking grain stock to buffer against future shocks. Six out of every 10 Indians, or about 80 million people, rely on the government for food aid, accounting for about 25 million tons of wheat from its total grain stock.

Today, wheat prices have stabilized marginally. Ukraine, Russia and Turkey agreed to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which allows grain and other foodstuffs to be shipped out of Ukraine across the Black Sea through a protected corridor. While Ukraine has ramped up exports, the amount is still 30 percent less than before the Russian invasion. Russia is also now threatening to pull out of the deal because of what it says is the impact of Western sanctions on its own agricultural exports.

India, for its part, does not expect to allow wheat exports before 2024.