As many Indian states face heatwaves and the extreme heat is breaking records globally, the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) is hosting a virtual dialogue to deliberate on strategies for advancing India’s resilience to extreme heat on 20 May 2025. As extreme heat events in India become more frequent, intense, and prolonged, it is essential to rapidly scale up heat resilience efforts. A comprehensive understanding of heat risks district by district is a critical step in this process. CEEW has conducted detailed research to map heat risks across India’s districts, using 35 indicators covering climatological changes in heat indices, land-use and land-cover changes, building and population density exposures, green cover, and socio-economic and health-related vulnerabilities.

At this dialogue, we aim to launch the report titled “How Extreme Heat Is Impacting India: Assessing District-level Heat Risk” and foster discussion on the strategies for building resilience against extreme heat. The discussions will focus on the disaster risk reduction strategies, ranging from the implementation of heat action plans to strengthening health resilience and securing financing solutions. There will also be a focused discussion on leveraging heat-related data for risk management and early warnings. These discussions will help in shaping a comprehensive plan for enhancing heat resilience and adaptive capacity at the national, state, and local levels.