In April 2023, Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia and Deoria districts saw the deaths of around 200 people in a week as temperatures reached 45 degrees C and humidity touched 50%.

This created what scientists called the “wet-bulb effect”: when the air is humid, sweat does not evaporate quickly enough to cool down the body, sometimes to lethal effect.

As climate change grows more severe, scientists predict that there will be an increase in such wet-bulb conditions – which are already transforming the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in India and other parts of the world.

This fast-emerging threat to human survival is among the subjects being discussed at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference now underway in the Brazilian city of Belem. This annual event, being attended by ar

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