Heat Could Kill 15,800 More Indians in Six Months. The Warning Has Come Early.
India is projected to see roughly 15,800 more heat-related deaths between September 2026 and February 2027 than in a normal year. That is the finding of a new study from the Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, which puts much of it down to the Super El Niño now under way.
Global land temperatures are expected to run 1.2°C above normal, with 44% more extremely hot days, conditions that climate change was projected to deliver 20 years from now. Worldwide the study counts 4,51,000 excess deaths tied to this El Niño, 2,39,000 of them within these six months.
India ranks fourth, behind Nigeria, Indonesia and Sudan. About 7,400 of India’s deaths fall between December and February alone, sharpest in the south, where normal winters are already warm enough to kill. And the toll does not taper off. It keeps climbing into summer.
The authors call it a postcard from the future. A government that clears forests for its corporate friends and treats heat as a seasonal nuisance has been handed the warning in advance.
