India lost 118 billion work hours in 2019 due to extreme heat: Study

File image: A vendor drinks water on a summer day in Jammu amid an intense heat wave. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)

India lost 118.3 billion work hours - the highest for any country - in 2019 due to extreme heat, according to a new Lancet Countdown report on health and climate change. This meant a loss of 111.2 work hours per person in the country.

In comparison, China – the second on the table – lost 28.3 billion work hours in total. A potential 302 billion work hours were lost in 2019 across the world. That’s about 52.7 work hours per capita globally.

Only 13 countries made up 80.7 percent of the global work hours lost during the year. While India recorded the greatest total loss, it was Cambodia with the highest per person loss (202.2 work hours).

India also saw a record number of above-baseline days of heat wave exposure affecting people above the age of 65. Since the year 2000, there has been a 53.7 percent jump in heat-related deaths globally among those above 65 years of age. In 2018, the total of such deaths was 2.96 lakh. Of these, China reported the highest of 62,000 of such deaths ahead of India’s 31,000.

According to the study, the estimated loss in earnings due to extreme heat had reached as high as 3.9-5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015 for lower-middle-income countries. This included India, Cambodia and Indonesia.

The study suggests that in many countries, agricultural workers see the worst effects. In high-income countries such as the United States, the burden is often on workers in the construction sector.