Extreme Heat and the Future We Are Failing to Plan For
H. M. Nazmul Alam :
For decades, climate change has been discussed in Bangladesh as a threatening future catastrophe, something waiting patiently at the edge of time.
Cyclones would intensify, rivers would erode more land, the sea would inch closer. These were presented as tomorrow’s problems, tragic but distant.
The uncomfortable truth now confronting us is far more unsettling. Climate change is no longer arriving.
It has already arrived, quietly, persistently, and with a temperature reading that refuses to go down.
A recent study led by researchers from Oxford University and published in Nature Sustainability delivers a stark warning.
If global temperatures rise by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, Bangladesh will be among the six countries most affected by extreme heat waves by 2050. The others are India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines.
This is not a speculative scenario. Scientists say that the world is already hovering around the 1.5 degree mark, and the most rapid escalation of heat-related risks will occur precisely in this narrow band between 1.5 and 2 degrees.
According to the study, in 2010 around 1.54 billion people, roughly 23 percent of the global population, lived under conditions of extreme heat. By 2050, if warming reaches two degrees, that number will rise to about 3.79 billion people, or 41 percent of humanity.
This is not simply a statistic. It is a fundamental transformation of what it means to live, work and survive on this planet.
For Bangladesh, a densely populated country already grappling with economic vulnerability and infrastructural stress, this projection carries existential weight.
Our traditional understanding of climate risk has been shaped by water. Floods, cyclones, storm surges and river erosion dominate both policy discussions and public imagination.
Heat, by contrast, has remained underappreciated, perhaps because it lacks the spectacle of a roaring cyclone or a collapsing riverbank.
Yet extreme heat is a silent killer. It does not destroy houses overnight, but it steadily erodes health, productivity and social stability.
The danger is compounded by the fact that national average temperatures conceal more than they reveal.
Large parts of Bangladesh already experience more than 3,000 cooling degrees per year, a technical measure that signals prolonged exposure to dangerous heat requiring artificial cooling for basic comfort and safety.
For millions of people living in informal settlements, tin-roofed homes, or poorly ventilated rural houses, this heat is not an abstract number. It is a daily physical assault.
Heat waves are not merely uncomfortable.
They are deadly. Medical research consistently shows that extreme heat increases the risk of cardiovascular failure, kidney disease, respiratory complications and heatstroke.
The elderly, children, outdoor workers and low-income communities face the highest risks.
In Bangladesh, where a large portion of the workforce is employed in agriculture, construction, transport and informal labor, extreme heat directly threatens livelihoods.
A day too hot to work is a day without income, and repeated days like this can push households from vulnerability into poverty.
There is also an educational cost that remains poorly discussed. Children cannot learn effectively in overheated classrooms. Attendance drops, concentration falters, and long-term cognitive development suffers.
As Radhika Khosla of Oxford University has warned, exceeding the 1.5 degree threshold will have unprecedented impacts on education, health, migration and food production. Climate change is not waiting until 2050 to disrupt lives. It is doing so right now.
Perhaps the most disturbing dimension of this crisis is its moral asymmetry. The study highlights a cruel global paradox.
As temperatures rise, demand for cooling will increase sharply in poor and middle-income countries located in tropical and subtropical regions.
At the same time, demand for heating will decrease in wealthier countries in the global north as winters become milder.
In simple terms, those who have contributed least to historical carbon emissions will suffer the most from extreme heat, while those most responsible will experience relative relief.
This imbalance deepens when we consider what researchers call the cooling trap. As heat intensifies, people understandably turn to air conditioning.
But if electricity generation relies on fossil fuels, increased cooling demand leads to higher emissions, which in turn intensify warming.
The cycle feeds itself. For a country like Bangladesh, already struggling with energy shortages and grid instability, a massive surge in cooling demand could overwhelm the power sector, leading to blackouts precisely when electricity is most needed for survival.
Urban centres are especially vulnerable. Dhaka, already one of the most densely populated and heat-stressed megacities in the world, could face at least two severe heat waves every year, capable of bringing city life to a near standstill.
Transport systems buckle, productivity collapses, and public health emergencies multiply.
The possibility of heat waves extending into the monsoon season, once a natural cooling period, further complicates adaptation strategies.
Yet heat does not only threaten physical systems. It strains social fabric. Prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures has been linked globally to increased aggression, reduced tolerance and heightened social tension.
In a country where political and economic pressures are already intense, chronic heat stress can act as an invisible accelerant, amplifying unrest and deepening inequalities. This fire does not burn buildings, but it burns patience.
For Bangladesh, adaptation is no longer optional. Heat-resilient urban planning, improved building standards, green spaces, reflective materials, better ventilation and affordable cooling solutions are no longer luxuries.
They are survival tools. Public policy must treat heat waves with the same seriousness as floods or cyclones, with early warning systems, health preparedness and targeted support for vulnerable communities.
At the same time, adaptation without mitigation is a losing battle. Bangladesh cannot solve global emissions alone, but it can and must advocate more forcefully for climate justice.
International climate finance, technology transfer and fair energy transitions are not acts of charity. They are obligations rooted in responsibility.
At the beginning of this century, climate change was framed as a warning. Today, it is a verdict already being delivered.
The question before us is no longer whether the heat will come, but whether we will act before it reshapes society beyond recognition.
The language of this danger may be silent, but its consequences will be anything but.
(The writer is an Academic, Journalist, and Political Analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Currently he teaches at IUBAT. He can be reached at [email protected])