Heat alone cost Indian workers an estimated $174 billion in potential earnings in 2025. That is 4.2% of India’s GDP, against 0.91% for the world as a whole, more than four times the share.
The figures come from the 10th annual Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, run by 146 researchers led by University College London and working with the WHO. India lost an average of 193 billion potential work hours a year over 2016–2025, 75% more than in the 1990s. Farm work accounted for about two-thirds of the hours lost.
Man-made PM2.5 (fine particles from burning coal, oil and gas) was linked to more than 2.2 million deaths in India in 2023, up 22% on 2016. Fossil fuels contributed 38% of them.
Yet India’s net fossil fuel subsidies came to $62.3 billion in 2024, about half of national health expenditure. The Modi government keeps paying the fuel industry while our farm workers cook in the sun and our cities choke. The corporations profit. The people pay in wages, in sleep and in lives.
