Large swathes of South Asia are drying up in the hottest pre-summer months in recent years, prompting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of rising fire risks.

Doctors in an animal hospital managed by non-profit Jivdaya Charitable Trust in Ahmedabad said they have treated thousands of birds in the last few weeks, adding that rescuers bring dozens of high flying birds such as pigeons or kites everyday.

Birds are being rescued as they fall to their deaths in India.AMIT DAVE/REUTERS

Vets are working hard to save the birds.AMIT DAVE/REUTERS

“This year has been one of the worst in the recent times. We have seen a 10 per cent increase in the number of birds that need rescuing,” Manoj Bhavsar, who works closely with the trust and has been rescuing birds for over a decade in India.

Animal doctors at the trust-run hospital were seen feeding birds multi-vitamin tablets and injecting water into their mouths using syringes on Wednesday this week.

Health officials in Gujarat have issued advisories to hospitals to set up special wards for heat stroke and other heat-related diseases due to the rise in temperatures.

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But as the worst heatwaves in 100 years break across India, the country’s annual cricket tournament is powering on.

In April, central India’s average maximum temperature hit 37.8C – the highest since records began in 1901. Extreme heat events in South Asia are becoming more common as a result of climate change, the world’s leading climate authority has warned.

Those who have no choice but to work outdoors – like rickshaw drivers or gardeners – are at the greatest risk of illness and death in these conditions, not professional athletes.

The extreme heat, however, is moulding tactics in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world’s sixth-biggest sports league. Whichever team wins the toss on weekend games – which start at 3.30pm – is sure to choose to bat first, sparing its men a brutal afternoon fielding under the sun.

Most matches are being played in and around Mumbai, away from the record-resetting temperatures in the northern districts and Pakistan over the last few weeks.

But in a sign of how far the heat has permeated the bubbles of the ten IPL teams, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) cricketers linked their decision to wear a green jersey during yesterday’s match with the scorching statistics of recent weeks.

“Climate change is on our doorstep, and it’s our responsibility to take care of the only planet that we call home,” legendary batter Virat Kohli said in a video shared on Twitter before RCB’s winning game on 8 May.

The mercury is set to climb to 47C in New Delhi again this weekend, lingering in the mid-30s in Mumbai. So how is the game coping with this sweltering heat ahead of the IPL final on 29 May?

How are the heatwaves shaping tactics in the Indian Premier League?

Workers push a trolley of water past the bus of Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Delhi Capitals in Mumbai last month.PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP

It rests on the toss of a coin, but choosing to bat first has become an obvious tactical choice in the IPL.

Keeping 11 of your players from being “completely cooked” for the second half of the game makes sense, RCB analyst Freddie Wilde tells Euronews Green, but it also helps lift morale.

The coastal city has avoided the worst of the heat this year, but many of the players still recall a scorching day when they played against Chennai Super Kings last year.

“Apparently that was just unbearable and it completely broke the players,” says Wilde. “The fear that that might happen again is always on your mind.”

Players changed shirts three or four times during that fielding innings, which lasted around 90 minutes. In breaks, the twelfth man – the reserve player who usually brings out water – came running with ice packs.

Even so, “you could see players retreating into the shadows [cast by the stand], even if it wasn’t in the fielding position they were meant to be in – it was that hot,” Wilde says.

Batters in Test matches – which run for up to five days, as opposed to the quicker-paced 20 overs format of the IPL – have to endure longer stints under the sun.

One player told Wilde of a grueling match he’d played in Pakistan around two years ago. The batter – made delirious by heat – flagged down a twelfth man for water who, it turned out, was actually a security guard.

Keeping hydrated is, in all seriousness, key to beating the heat. But the critical hydration for the RCB players comes well in advance of the game. Their drinking is monitored 24 hours before stepping out, under the watchful eyes of physiotherapists and doctors.

How is the climate crisis impacting cricket?

A bushfire burns outside the Perth Cricket Stadium in Perth in December 2019, dubbed Australia’s ‘Black Summer’.PETER PARKS/AFP

From India to South Africa, Bangladesh to the Caribbean, cricket-playing nations are suffering the new extremes of heat, drought, sea-level rise, and storms that our greenhouse gas emissions are unleashing.

Few sports are so finely attuned to climate, in the way it skews a pitch; altering the amount of grass, the humidity of the air, the performance of the people playing it. And sometimes the impacts of climate change cross a safe boundary.

During the 2018 Ashes Test in Sydney, England captain Joe Root was taken to hospital after batting in a helmet and pads through 47C heat. The Delhi air pollution in December 2017 left Sri Lankan fast bowlers vomiting on the side of the field.

At other times, the crisis that a country is going through renders sport unimportant. In January 2020 – as bushfires raged through Australia – players donned black armbands to honour the emergency services risking their lives to save people from the furnace.

Needless to say, the times when climate and cricket interact are becoming more and more frequent. “Global warming is already wreaking havoc on our sport,” wrote Aussie Test captain Pat Cummins earlier this year.

How can cricket be part of the climate solution?

England’s Worcestershire County Cricket Club flooded repeatedly in 2019.Jacob King/AP

Waiting for the evening dew to bowl is one small tactical decision that teams can take. But what bigger manoeuvres are national cricket boards and the International Cricket Council (ICC) making to avoid the worst impacts of climate change?

The ideas for how the sport can adapt to these extremes in weather are already there. The 2019 ‘Hit for Six’ report from the British Association of Sustainable Sport (BASIS) made key recommendations for ensuring the welfare of players, umpires and fans at all levels of the game. These range from wearing shorts to setting heat rules, with specific guidelines for youth players who are “less able to regulate [their] body temperatures.”

In a different league altogether is the suggestion that the ICC set up a global climate disaster fund to support communities in vulnerable regions. There’s no indication of this being acted on yet.

The lip service paid to climate action can ring hollow when compared to the clout and funds of organising bodies like IPL sponsor TATA, India’s largest conglomerate. TATA Steel, a ‘child’ company of the group, is one of the top CO2 emitters in Europe.

Still, there’s no doubt that cricket has the ear of its fans in a powerful way, and an ability to sway public discourse.

Cummins is one international cricketer using his platform, and the diagnosis of his sport to make the case for a wider cure.

“Like all Australian athletes, we cricketers try to punch above our weight on the world stage. And with the incredible resources we have to hand, we want to do that on climate too,” he wrote in the Guardian.

“Few countries in the world can match Australia’s extraordinary potential to generate renewable energy like solar and wind power – we think this is a win-win for our game and for the environment.”

As such, Cummins has co-launched Cricket for Climate – a movement to get all Australian cricket clubs to achieve net-zero emissions over the next decade.

On this front, there’s no competition between players. Especially given the gulf in responsibility between historic emitters England and Australia and cricket-playing countries in the Global South.

But there’s a growing sense that on whatever stage cricket is played, it can’t help but shine a light on the climate crisis.

RCB’s annual ‘Go Green’ day sees players don green shirts to raise awareness about steps to curb climate change, in a competition watched by 229 million TV viewers in the league’s opening week.

Whichever team lifts the trophy at the end of this month, it’s clear it will soon be worthless without quick and meaningful wins for the planet too.

The post ‘Retreating into shadows’: How the climate crisis is impacting cricket first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.

In an effort to defy the searing summer heat, he has installed a garden on its rooftop – boasting over 20 different varieties of shrubs, crops and flowers.

Kumar believes the thick patch of greenery prevents heat from entering the vehicle, keeping his passengers cool as they travel around the Indian capital.

“Around two years ago I had this idea during the peak of the summer season,” says the 48-year-old rickshaw driver.

“I thought if I can grow some plants on the roof, it will keep my auto cool and give relief from the heat to my passengers. It’s like a natural AC. ”

How hot is the Indian heatwave?

Kumar waters his rooftop garden twice a dayAFP

Kumar’s vehicle has become a focal point for locals stopping to take photos of the ‘moving garden’.

The driver has also installed two fans inside the rickshaw in an effort to defy the deadly heatwave sweeping across the nation. Temperatures in New Delhi have exceeded 45 degrees Celsius in recent weeks, while March saw India’s highest average maximum temperature in 122 years.

Heatwaves have killed over 6,500 people in India since 2010. Scientists say climate change is making them harsher and more frequent across South Asia.

Forecasters predict temperatures will abate in the next three or four days, but they warn it could rise again in the weeks to come.

Pleasing to the eyes and the soul

The rickshaw garden contains lettuce, tomatoes and milletsAFP

For now, Kumar is pleased to be doing his “own small bit” for the environment by planting lettuce, tomatoes and millets on his auto rickshaw.

The driver uses a thick sack as the base of his garden, before sprinkling soil onto the roof and sowing a variety of seeds.

“It does not require much effort at all,” says Kumar. “I just water the plants using a bottle twice a day.”

His initiative has captured the attention of many of his fellow drivers, as well as locals eager to see more greenery added to their sweltering city.

“It’s a great idea,” says Naima Jamal, a pedestrian watching from the side of the road.

“Delhi has become a concrete jungle, there is hardly any vegetation. We need more auto rickshaws like this on the roads – they are pleasing to the eyes and the soul.”

Watch the video above to see the moving garden for yourself.

The post Meet Delhi’s guerrilla gardener making rickshaws green first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.

Temperatures are forecast to reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit along the border of the two countries in the coming days, meteorologists warn, under a record-breaking ‘heat dome’ for April.

Late spring typically brings the hottest days of the year to India, before the cooling monsoon rains arrive in June. But it has been much hotter than average since early March as a result of climate change, imperilling millions of people and scorching crops the world is relying on.

“Well-off people will have air conditioners in their homes and offices, but here [in New Delhi], people like gardeners and those who work in the open areas, how will they survive in such heat?” gardener Prem Kishore asked AP earlier this month.

India’s increasingly intense heatwaves are a death sentence for hundreds of the country’s poorest people every year. Rickshaw drivers, street vendors, daily wage workers and the homeless are at greatest risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke. At least 2,081 people died during a heatwave in 2015, the country’s worst since 1992.

A heat dome is created when an area of high pressure stays over the same area for days or even weeks, trapping warm air underneath like a lid on a pot. The one that has formed over the Indian subcontinent is sending temperatures over 40C.

A landfill site burned on the capital’s outskirts on Wednesday. There have been increasing incidents of fires, including in hospitals and jungles, Modi said.Reuters/ADNAN ABIDI

On Tuesday (26 April) the mercury hit 47C (116F) in the Pakistan city of Dadu – the joint highest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere this year (tied with Senegal). On the banks of the Ganges, it reached 41C in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Meteorologists, including Scott Duncan, say the worst is yet to come – with some cities expected to approach 50C. “This heatwave is going to have an impact on more than 10 per cent of the entire population of the planet,” he says.

During spells of heat waves, India usually suffers from severe water shortages with tens of millions lacking running water.

Will India’s heatwave make food supplies run out?

A woman wearing an umbrella on her head cuts paddy crop in Umwang village, along the Assam-Meghalaya state border in India, October 2021.Anupam Nath/AP Photo

As well as the deadly toll this extreme weather is taking on India and Pakistan’s people, there are concerns about the impact on national and global food supplies.

Farmers in India’s biggest wheat-producing states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have watched their fields shrivel under the scorching sun, following an unusually dry March.

“The heat spell occurred very fast and also matured the crop at a faster pace, which shriveled the grain size. This also resulted in a drop in yield,” JDS Gill, the agriculture information officer in the state of Punjab, told India Today.

It comes at a time when the world’s staple food supplies are already under strain due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – often called ‘the breadbasket of Europe’ – and other climate change fuelled events. 

In light of the war, Indian Prime Minister Modi told US President Biden that India was “ready to supply food stock to the world”. But the unprecedented heatwave has thrown that into doubt.

“[Wheat] prices will be driven up, if you look at what is happening in Ukraine, with many countries relying on wheat from India to compensate, the impact will be felt well beyond India,” Harjeet Singh, an adviser with Climate Action Network International, told NBC News.

In the midst of the crisis, some Indians are going out of their way to protect the country’s wildlife.

“It’s our responsibility to appear as helpers to the speechless animals, birds, and those animals roaming on the streets in such searing heat,” said Delhi shopkeeper, Rahul Singh Chauhan, as he distributed water and food to birds.

The post What does India’s heatwave mean for global food supplies? first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.