By AIDMI, India

Extreme heat is increasingly shaping the lived reality of cities and small towns across India. While floods, cyclones, and earthquakes are widely recognised within loss and damage discussions, extreme heat often remains under-acknowledged—despite causing persistent and cumulative harm. AIDMI’s experience over multiple years of working with affected people and small businesses shows that heat-related loss and damage is real, measurable in everyday life, and largely preventable if addressed early.

Loss Builds Before It Is Recognised

One of the most significant challenges with extreme heat is that loss accumulates silently and gradually. Reduced working hours, declining productivity, heat-related illness, damage to goods, and increased household expenses rarely appear as disaster losses. These impacts often fall below formal thresholds for relief or compensation, yet together they erode economic security. By the time losses become visible, they are already deeply entrenched.

Livelihood Loss Is Central to Heat Damage

AIDMI’s field engagement consistently shows that for affected people, extreme heat is not only a health issue—it is a livelihood crisis. Small businesses experience declining footfall, shortened operating hours, spoilage of goods, and increased operating costs. Income loss during prolonged heat spells forces households to cut consumption, postpone essential expenses, or take on debt. These livelihood losses represent a core component of heat-related loss and damage.

Coping Often Shifts Loss to the Future

People are not passive in the face of heat. They adapt by working fewer hours, altering schedules, borrowing money, or drawing down savings. However, these coping strategies often shift loss forward in time rather than eliminating it. Deferred medical care, postponed repairs, and mounting debt increase vulnerability to future shocks. What appears as short-term coping frequently translates into long-term damage.

Absence of Preventive Support Converts Loss into Damage

Where early support is missing, avoidable losses become irreversible damage. AIDMI has observed that without timely cooling measures, flexible finance, or institutional backing, small businesses may shut down permanently, health impacts may become chronic, and households may exit local economies altogether. The lack of preventive investment transforms manageable heat stress into lasting economic and social damage.

Local Adaptation Can Reduce Loss and Damage

At the same time, AIDMI’s experience also demonstrates that loss and damage from extreme heat is not inevitable. Simple, locally driven cooling actions—such as shade, ventilation, water access, and adjusted work practices—can significantly reduce exposure. When supported early through small grants, technical guidance, or institutional endorsement, these measures prevent income loss and health decline. Local adaptation, when enabled in time, acts as a powerful form of loss and damage prevention.

Conclusion

Extreme heat challenges conventional understandings of disaster loss and damage because it is slow, everyday, and uneven. AIDMI’s experience underscores the need to expand loss and damage frameworks to recognise gradual livelihood erosion and cumulative harm. More importantly, it shows that early, local, and practical adaptation can reduce both loss and damage. As heat becomes a defining feature of the climate crisis, recognising and addressing its impacts must move from the margins to the centre of policy and practice.