India’s urban climate crisis is the result of our own policy failures

Cities function like living organisms, consuming energy, water and materials while emitting heat, waste and pollutants. This ‘urban metabolism’ has breached ecological limits, creating a ‘metabolic rift,’ or a disconnect between relentless construction and nature’s capacity to regenerate. 

In Bengaluru, over 1,000 storm- water drains were encroached in 2024 alone, while Kolkata has lost over 44% of its water bodies in the last two decades. These are reflections of an urban model that builds by displacing ecology.

The effects are most evident in rising urban heat. Urban heat island (UHI) effects, intensified by glass, asphalt and shrinking green cover, trap dangerous levels of heat. In May 2024, the temperature in New Delhi hit 47.3°C. The city’s climate severity index has risen 1.5% over 15 years to 57. These are outcomes of flawed heat-amplifying design.

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It’s similar with urban flooding. It is no longer just a ‘drainage issue,’ but a systemic hydrological failure. Sealed landscapes can’t absorb rainfall. As a result, pluvial floods are expected to intensify from 3.6 to 7 times by 2070.

As Anthropocene constructs, Indian cities now have climate risk hardwired into infrastructure, governance and growth patterns. With urban waste projected to reach 435 million tonnes by 2050, urban development is devouring its own future. 

Urban resilience in India is far more than a technical term. It’s a social and political coinage. Our capacity to adapt to climate change is inseparable from structural inequalities embedded in our urban fabric. Climate effects magnify disparities, placing the heaviest burden on the vulnerable.

Nowhere is this more evident than  in the nexus of heat stress and income inequality. In Chennai, extreme heat is already estimated to drain $1.9 billion annually, 2.3% of the city’s GDP. This could rise to 3.2% by 2050. But this cost is unequally shared. Low-income zones,  often built with heat-retaining materials and lacking shade, consistently register higher temperatures, worsening health risks and eroding productivity.

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A similar story unfolds in relation to urban flooding and informal settlements. In 2020, nearly half of India’s urban population was living in informal settlements, many in flood-prone areas. India has lost over 1,500 lives annually to floods over the past decade. Add the heat-related deaths, estimated at 0.2 to 0.4 per 1,000 people annually in cities like Chennai, Surat and Lucknow, with 20% higher mortality among seniors, and the picture is clear: urban climate effects are deeply unequal.

To address these risks, we need more than infrastructure. It demands adaptive governance and a build-up of local capacity. Yet, only 10 of 126 cities under the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework have conducted flood-risk assessments. 

Gaps in policy implementation are glaring. Community-led innovation offers hope, though. In Ahmedabad, the Mahila Housing Trust has enabled informal settlers to access microfinance and install cool roofs, a low-cost and effective heat mitigation strategy. Similarly, the city’s heat action plan has helped prevent over 1,100 deaths annually since 2013. These are proof that a top-down policy aligned well with ground engagement can  save lives.

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This brings us to the ethics and justice of urban resilience. Establishing a ‘Right to a resilient city’ demands a significant financial step-up. India needs nearly $2.4 trillion by 2050 for resilient urban infrastructure. Current spending lags at $120.5 billion. This massive gap hits the poorest the hardest, denying them access to essential protections. Market-based models rarely deliver resilience as a public good and with  private financing at just 5% and green bonds yet to prove transformative, we must ask: do these tools democratize resilience or merely repackage risk?

India’s emerging circular economy is projected to create $2 trillion in value and 10 million jobs by 2050. But resilience isn’t just about engineering. A socially resilient India must prioritize community knowledge, participatory planning and equitable finance. 

India’s urban resilience is hampered by institutional inertia. Fragmented governance, rooted in colonial legacies and outdated planning, creates a significant ‘policy-implementation gap,’ where ambitious goals falter locally due to limited capacity and underspending. Examples like Mumbai’s pioneering climate budget and Ahmedabad’s resilient investment planning offer pathways, but these isolated successes struggle to scale against systemic resistance. True urban resilience needs a basic shift to regenerative urbanism and a holistic as well as socially just development model. 

This future will depend not just on technology, but on re-wilding urban spaces, fostering circular economies and using participatory processes. We should ensure that India’s next urban chapter is one of profound regeneration rather than an inevitable reckoning.

Ankur Singh, research analyst at CNES, contributed to this article. 

The author is professor and dean, O.P. Jindal Global University, visiting professor, London School of Economics, and a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford.