Focus on Arts and Ecology

While the latest talks were less fraught than October’s, the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework is far from a done deal. 

By Regina Lam, May 7, 2026

An ambitious plan to curb the shipping sector’s emissions survived renewed attempts to wreck it during meetings at the UN’s maritime agency last week, with its backers leaving at least partially buoyant.

Observers told Dialogue Earth that slightly more than half the voting countries want the plan, known as the Net-Zero Framework, to be the basis for future talks under the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The US and Saudi Arabia tried to permanently sink the plan last year, and are still pushing for that outcome. At the London headquarters of the IMO last week, however, members decided not to rule anything out before the next meeting on the subject in November.

If a vote to adopt the plan does take place in November, it will require a two-third majority to succeed. 

“There is less pressure from the US and Saudi Arabia [at this meeting] … and the fact that the Net-Zero Framework is still on the table increases the chance of adoption,” said Benoit Bardouille, the Commonwealth of Dominica’s delegate to the IMO.

Ambulances on standby

Approximately 3% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from shipping. Countries have committed to achieving net-zero emissions from the shipping industry “by or around” 2050.

The IMO’s framework is intended as a step towards this. It proposes standards to limit vessels’ fuel emissions and requirements for shipowners to pay for emissions that exceed certain limits. The money would fund work to mitigate the impacts of climate change for developing states, and an aim of the framework is to somehow reward low-emission ships.

That 2050 target was agreed upon in July 2023, while the Net-Zero Framework was approved one year ago with a view to formal adoption at the next IMO meeting, in October 2025. But when October arrived, a majority of IMO states voted to delay further discussions for yet another year.

Some commentators said the plans were effectively dead in the water. Many attributed this apparent U-turn to the US government, which threatened proponents with economic punishments, and even intimidated delegates. Concerns that the plan would spike shipping costs and impact developing states were also cited as reasons to delay. 

In October, countries voted to delay the contentious decision on adoption – the final step in the process – for one year. That means it will not be discussed until the next meeting, this November. At last week’s meeting, multiple delegates told Dialogue Earth that political pressure from the US had eased; the fraught and bitter negotiations of last year were largely avoided.

When tensions did start to build on the final day, the meeting’s chair leaned on a running joke he had started at last year’s hugely heated session, asking: “I am sure you don’t want me to call the ambulance like the last time, right?”

In a statement issued after the meeting, the US delegate Laura DiBella wrote the framework would cause “serious economic harm”. A previously silent majority of countries that share this stance had “finally found its voice”, she added.

Tristan Smith, an energy and transport expert at University College London who attended the meeting, felt there was still “a lot of pressure” from the US and its allies in the room. But he told Dialogue Earth it did not appear as effective in influencing countries this time around: “That’s either because countries are paying less attention to the US … or countries are more prepared.”

Leading advocates, including Brazil, Mexico and most of the European Union and the Pacific, want the framework adopted largely as it stands this November. Over 100 country representatives took to the floor during discussions on the framework. According to Smith’s analysis, the majority indicated they still prefer the existing framework.

Various proposals are now trying to chart a course between the existing framework and abandoning it altogether. Ahead of the meeting, Liberia, Argentina and Panama proposed to work on “a revised and more pragmatic” framework. It would scrap payments into a net-zero fund, and only consider “commercially viable” and “affordable” fuels for the greenhouse gas intensity targets.

The proposal’s critics warn it would leave the IMO far from fulfilling its decarbonisation commitments. Furthermore, any significant changes require a new draft to be approved; this would restart the discussion clock, meaning another six months before a decision on adoption could take place.

Lloyd Fikiasi, a delegate from Vanuatu, found the US’s complaints over higher shipping costs ironic, given the current fuel and shipping crisis it has triggered since attacking Iran. The UN reports that Vanuatu has been forced to warn of electricity price rises, while the Pacific islands of Palau, Nauru and Kiribati are also “weighing responses”.

“They caused the war and now we suffer,” Fikiasi said. “We are paying for it.”

Member states have agreeing to continue discussions in intersessional meetings, which will taking place in September and early November, before the plenary in late November that will revisit the decision on adoption. “We are getting there,” Fikiasi added.

Jesse Fahnestock, the Global Maritime Forum’s decarbonisation director, told Dialogue Earth that his team also thinks the framework now has the backing of a slight majority.

However, while last week’s meeting “may have undermined some assumptions that the current agreement was dead”, Fahnestock added, “it’s a bit difficult to say where we are heading.”

In response to water scarcity, agriculture in north-western Bangladesh is transitioning – but leaving landless communities behind. 

By Tanmoy Bhaduri, May 11, 2026

The 8,000 sq km Barind Tract in north-western Bangladesh was once synonymous with paddy cultivation. These days, parts of the region are home to high-value crops that do not form the local staple diet. In some places, crops are being cultivated that were virtually unknown until a decade ago.

The region’s higher, undulated area, the High Barind Tract, incorporates Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj and Naogaon. In parts of these three districts, farmers are switching from paddy cultivation to crops like dragon fruit, sweet orange and mango. They are also increasingly growing crops that require less water, like maize, lentils, tomatoes and chillies.

The tract’s farmers are making this switch in response to a growing water crisis in the region: Barind has been experiencing erratic rainfall, and its groundwater has been gradually reducing.

“Farmers are responding to water stress in real time,” says Mariam Ahmed, a government agriculture officer in Godagari, an upazila (subdistrict) of Rajshahi. “Over the past few years, we have seen a significant expansion of dragon fruit cultivation across three unions in Godagari [Pakri, Matikata and Gogram], particularly in Matikata, where many highlands and even some former paddy fields are now being converted into dragon fruit orchards.”

Barind’s transformation is often cited as an example of local climate adaptation. But though the adaptation is rooted in necessity, for some the choice of crop is reflective of economic drivers. “Farmers are shifting from rice to dragon fruit, malta fruit [sweet orange] and mango orchards because they see stable profits and lower water needs,” Ahmed notes. “The driver is economic opportunity as much as climate adaptation.”

This shift is manageable for those with market access, adequate infrastructure to rely upon and capital investment. But landless tenant farmers, as well as resource-poor and marginal communities, remain trapped in traditional systems. They are experiencing shrinking returns and the loss of stable agricultural jobs.

“Those who have land and savings can adapt,” says Mohammad Bulu, a farmer in the Vajanpur Patha Para village of Godagari. “For the poor, it’s impossible.”

A drought-prone region

The Barind Tract is one of the driest zones in the country, with annual rainfall half of that seen in eastern and southern Bangladesh. It is also prone to drought.

Over the past decade, groundwater levels have dropped by nearly 10-15 metres in many upazilas in the region. That is according to Mohammad Abdul Latif Sarkar, an assistant engineer at the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), a government body overseeing the tract’s agricultural development.

This is due to several reasons, one being the region’s thick surface layer of clay. This prevents the percolation of water and thus makes groundwater recharge difficult, notes Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, a professor at the University of Rajshahi’s Department of Geology and Mining.

“Ten years ago, a BMDA deep tube well could irrigate more than 200 bighas [27 hectares] of land,” says Abu Bakar, a pump operator at the Matikata union council, a local government body within Godagari. “Now, it can barely serve half.” The groundwater level has fallen so low that submersible pumps can no longer do the job.

Across Godagari, irrigation is increasingly difficult. Bakar notes that many tube wells have started to yield less water and, in a few cases, have stopped functioning. Meanwhile, many bodies of surface water in Godagari are already used for aquaculture, which limits alternative irrigation sources in the area.

Saving groundwater

BMDA had historically used deeper tube wells to meet large-scale irrigation needs, and operates around 16,000 deep tube wells in the region. However, aquifer depletion has meant no new installations since 2012.

Since 2024, the BMDA’s pumps in these particular upazilas have been limited to operating for a maximum of 980 hours from mid-February to mid-May, when the boro crops (high-yielding winter rice) reach peak thirst in the Barind Tract. This is down from 1,200-1,400 hours. 

Latif notes that the BMDA simultaneously introduced a “rotational irrigation system” in 2024. This entails supplying water to only a third of the area it operates during the boro season, by delivering water from one deep tube well rather than three. Each serves 1-2 hectares of land. “This means farmers who receive irrigation this year will not get it for the next two years,” he clarifies.

Latif adds that field inspections by BMDA officials indicate groundwater levels have increased. Quantified data is not yet available.

The lowered cap and rotational irrigation have rapidly reshaped local cropping decisions. In the union of Pakri in Godagari, total boro rice cultivation shrank from 1,300 hectares in 2024 to around 1,050 last year, notes Mohammad Anisur Rahman. “Vegetables, maize and lentils have replaced many paddy fields because water is no longer available,” says the sub-assistant agricultural officer for Pakri council.

The BMDA’s policy is intended to regulate groundwater extraction, but experts say it may have inadvertently spurred unregulated private pumping. Many farmers are installing their own shallow tube wells, or relying on privately-operated electric pumps.

This often leads to groundwater extraction beyond the reach of government monitoring, notes Jahangir Alam Khan. He directs the DASCOH Foundation (Development Association for Self-reliance, Communication and Health), a local NGO focused on water issues. In upazilas across the region, Khan says “groundwater extraction is effectively going unmonitored, as existing systems of water management are unable to scale and [curb] spread of usage.”

“Restricting state-operated irrigation without strengthening local water governance leads to a parallel, unregulated market,” adds Jahan of the University of Rajshahi. “It undermines the very goal of groundwater sustainability.”

Switching crops: A two-tier adaptation story

With these policy changes, farmers are now faced with new opportunities and challenges shaped by market access and infrastructure.

In Godagari, farmers living near highways and marketplaces, such as those in the union of Matikata and parts of the union of Gogram, are far more likely to switch crops than those in more remote or upland areas, like Pakri, due to their visibility and connection to markets and customers. “Market access is the single biggest enabler,” says Ahmed. “Farmers who can sell fruits directly earn better.”

Hasibul Islam was working in construction in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. After the Covid-19 pandemic hit, he returned home to the village of Gopalpur in Matikata, where he converted his boro paddy fields into a dragon fruit orchard. Islam tells Dialogue Earth that one bigha (0.134 hectares) of paddy yields a net profit of BDT 80,000 (USD 655) annually, while dragon fruit earns BDT 500,000-600,000 (USD 4,900).

He highlights the benefits of the conversion, and his farm’s location beside the state highway: “Wholesalers come to me. I don’t even go to the market.”

Such transitions are capital-intensive. Establishing one bigha of dragon fruit requires around BDT 250,000 (USD 2,045), Islam notes. This is far beyond what marginal farmers can afford. Islam used his savings and obtained a loan from his brother (a migrant worker in Oman) to convert his fields.

For smallholders who lease land, the decision to change crops is often not up to them. “Owners decide what to grow,” says Mohammad Rasid, a tenant farmer in Gorgoria, a village in Pakri. His landlord uses a sharecropping system: land is cultivated on a yearly basis and the harvest typically split equally between the landowner and tenant farmer. Rasid retains a small portion for household consumption and sells the rest.

Rasid notes his smallholding mostly cultivates a thin-grain local variety of kalijira rice, a miniature version of basmati rice. It is traditionally cultivated for personal consumption but has good market value as a premium rice. “If I don’t grow [this variety of] rice, they won’t lease me the land next season,” he adds.

Meanwhile, agricultural labourers, particularly women and marginal communities, are losing work.

Some of the new crops being planted require less labour each year for pruning and orchard management, compared to the more intensive needs of paddy. “A mango orchard may provide only three months of employment to an agricultural labourer, while paddy cultivation ensures year-round engagement,” Jahan explains.

He notes that up to 15% of the Barind Tract’s population is Indigenous and landless communities, who already lack access to land and resources. “With this agricultural transition, many of them have become further marginalised. This shift will inevitably push these communities toward out-migration.”

Shreya Chakraborty, regional researcher at the International Water Management Institute, says Barind farmers’ adaptability and the changes being observed in the region “are evolving unevenly [as] those with resources are progressing, while the poorest remain trapped in uncertainty”.

She adds that a “multi-level holistic approach” is essential for any future adaptation initiatives in the region – “one that connects groundwater governance with inclusive finance, farmer training and fair market systems”.

Chakraborty says: “Without an enabling environment, these transitions will remain isolated success stories, rather than a pathway to long-term resilience for Barind’s water-stressed communities.”

The new five-year plan and a pilot scheme signal China is getting serious about green hydrogen, with steelmaking among the sectors that may benefit. 

By Song Wanyuan, May 7, 2026

Hydrogen has been described by the Chinese government as of “great significance” to the country’s clean-energy transition, but its uptake in a range of carbon-intensive sectors has so far faced hurdles of cost and logistics.

Now, a policy push is seeking to encourage the production of hydrogen, including “green” hydrogen made using renewable energy. The aim is to develop China’s hydrogen industry and boost its wider usage, including in the country’s vast steel industry.

In March, three government ministries launched a new pilot programme that will reward five city clusters for pursuing and reaching targets on hydrogen. Among its focuses is encouraging projects “promoting the steel industry’s transition” that make use of low-carbon hydrogen sources.

Green hydrogen is seen as a critical input for reducing emissions from steelmaking, as a lower-carbon fuel for the processing of iron ore, which conventionally takes place in coal-powered blast furnaces, or using natural gas. But only a limited number of facilities are currently producing steel at a commercial scale like this, both in China and globally.

The new programme was announced on the heels of the 15th Five Year Plan, China’s economic blueprint for 2026-2030, which emphasised ambitions to pursue hydrogen as a new energy source and “industry of the future”.

As the new hydrogen push launches and officials describe a potential “inflection point” in the sector, Dialogue Earth spoke with experts to understand the impacts this policy could have on green hydrogen’s role in the steel industry’s decarbonisation.

China’s new hydrogen push

Since the launch in 2022 of China’s first long-term hydrogen plan (for 2021-2035), the gas has become a more strategic part of China’s industrial decarbonisation agenda.

The new hydrogen policy released in March has been described as “an expanded 2.0” version of a previous city-cluster programme launched in 2021, which focused on its use in fuel-cell vehicles. Pilot city clusters under the 2021 policy received a total of about CNY 5.1 billion (USD 719 million) in central-government awards over more than three years. China has long provided financial support for fuel-cell vehicles as part of its broader push towards electric vehicles.

The new policy retains the focus on fuel-cells, while expanding hydrogen’s industrial use, including for steel and metallurgy, green ammonia and methanol, shipping and aviation.

Isadora Wang, head of China at the Transition Asia think-tank, told Dialogue Earth this latest programme is a “very good initiative” for steel.

“Unlike transport, which can use batteries and many other approaches, steel and chemicals have very limited options for decarbonisation,” she said, adding that they are the sectors “most in need of green hydrogen”.

Compared with more than CNY 32 billion (USD 5 billion) of subsidies injected into China’s EV industry between 2016 to 2020, the ambition for hydrogen is much smaller. Only about a CNY 8 billion (USD 1.17 billion) in total – up to CNY 1.6billion (USD 232 million) per city cluster – will be issued over the next four years for hydrogen projects.

Shen Xinyi, a China analyst focusing on steel at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said the smaller subsidies reflect the “more complicated nature of hydrogen”. Since hydrogen has a wider range of applications than EVs, a “‘one-size-fits-all’ approach” or “going ‘all in’ like with solar or EVs” is impractical, she said.

Wang said the design – “rewards rather than direct subsidies” – would help to avoid the “chaotic situation”, such as fraud, seen in EV subsidies. An audit by China’s industry ministry found at least CNY 864 million (USD 121 million) in subsidies for EVs were allegedly “improperly claimed”. EV sales in China also slowed after China ended consumer purchase subsidies in 2023.

“That experience showed how important subsidy design is,” Wang said. She said this “more refined” incentive is “relatively stable and predictable over four years and can draw in some private investment. That, in turn, could help the industry take shape.”

Both Wang and Shen said the biggest challenge for deployment is that hydrogen “is still too expensive”. The policy aims to bring down the end-use price from current levels of roughly CNY 35-50 (~USD 5.10-7.30) per kilogram to CNY 25 by 2030, with some “advantageous regions” – those with high renewable energy potential – aiming to cut the price to around CNY 15 per kg.

The cost of green hydrogen production in China currently stands at CNY 21-46 per kg, but end-user prices are higher due to factors such as transport costs.

Wang said CNY 25 is “very competitive for chemical products”, but is not low enough for hydrogen-based metallurgy, which needs cost of CNY 10-15 per kg.

“It is still fundamentally a pilot-driven policy, not yet a market-wide commercial rollout plan,” Wang added. She described the programme’s emphasis on regulation as “more suited to China’s national conditions” than approaches other markets may take.

In contrast, the European Hydrogen Bank supports renewable-based hydrogen projects through competitive auctions, while the US offers tax credits of up to USD 3 per kg (though the green credentials of the hydrogen it supports has been questioned). Japan, meanwhile, offers a different style of subsidies in the form of contracts for difference, which cover the difference between the cost of low-carbon hydrogen and a conventional-fuel benchmark.

“For steel decarbonisation, this is better understood as an enabling step rather than as proof that hydrogen-based steelmaking is about to scale across China,” said Shen.

Hydrogen steelmaking takes time

The use of hydrogen in China’s steel sector is still at an early commercial stage, with only a handful of companies operating facilities using hydrogen-based direct reduced iron with electric arc furnaces.

This pathway is seen as the most mature route to near-zero emissions steelmaking. But globally, almost all direct reduction of iron (DRI) – a process to remove oxygen from iron ore and enable its use in steelmaking – is currently carried out using fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the build-up and utilisation of electric arc furnaces (EAF) in China has stalled. Coal-based blast furnaces still account for nearly 90% of China’s steel production and are the main driver of the sector’s roughly 15% share of national emissions.

Among the companies with hydrogen-based projects are state-owned Baowu Steel – the world’s largest steelmaker – and Hebei Iron & Steel (HBIS).

In late 2025, Baowu completed a million-tonne capacity hydrogen DRI-EAF production line in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province. In January, it also announced plans for the CNY 11.9 billion (USD 1.54 billion) Yangjiang hydrogen project, 200 km to the east. This green hydrogen production hub will also feature a dedicated pipeline network connecting Yangjiang to major end-users, including Baowu’s facilities in Zhanjiang. Pipelines are the most economical option for transporting hydrogen in China, especially for distances longer than 200 km, according to a 2024 study.

HBIS, meanwhile, runs the other large-scale hydrogen-based steel plant currently operating in China, at a facility in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province.

For Shen, the fact that Baowu still uses “grey hydrogen” from hydrogen-rich coke oven gas, rather than green hydrogen produced with green electricity, shows how hard it is to commercialise a fully green hydrogen DRI-EAF.

Shen explained that DRI steelmaking costs about twice as much as the blast-furnace route, while green electricity requires stronger grid connections that are not feasible for every factory. “Most demonstration projects are not economically viable on their own. But without this kind of pilot, the chance of it becoming economically viable on its own would be even smaller,” she added.

“What is still missing is a combination of cheaper green hydrogen, more reliable access to low-cost clean electricity, suitable high-grade iron ore or pellets, stronger EAF economics, and clearer downstream willingness to pay for lower-carbon steel.”

A recent paper found that the “levelised cost” of hydrogen DRI-EAF steel could be reduced by 6-10% by pursuing “flexible strategies” across production stages, including pairing with energy storage, so the system can “better align the variable renewable power supply and industrial production demand”. HBIS, for example, is reportedly developing energy storage projects to support its production.

“The challenge is that most of the steel is still produced in the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace route, rather than the direct reduced iron-electric arc furnace route in China,” the paper’s lead author, He Yuezhang from Tsinghua University, explained to Dialogue Earth. “So you would basically need to rebuild the system from the ground up for it to match the power grid with increasing renewable penetration.”

As for moving away from the blast furnace route, Shen said dismantling large numbers of these plants is hard: “Blast-furnace steelmaking in China has become so cheap. Many aging furnaces are still running because they support employment and social stability.”

She said it is better to stop building new blast furnaces and to retrofit existing plants for decarbonised production, with the priority being to cut blast-furnace overcapacity, expand electric-arc furnace steelmaking and then move toward hydrogen metallurgy.

“There is already overcapacity,” she added. And since both blast furnaces and DRI-EAF use steel scrap for production, “if blast furnaces are cut back, there will be more scrap available for electric-arc furnaces. When steel prices normalise [with less supply], market returns and policy support will then make hydrogen DRI-EAF commercially attractive”.

Demand still an issue for green steel

China remains the world’s largest steel producer, with about 960 million tonnes of crude steel being produced in 2025. However, research firm Wood Mackenzie has estimated the country already has more than 50 million tonnes of excess capacity, and that figure could rise to 250 million tonnes by 2035.

While production has broadly levelled off, China’s crude steel output fell to a seven-year low in 2025 as the continued downturn in the country’s property and construction sectors hit demand. Steel exports, meanwhile, accounted for 12% of last year’s production, but have kept rising: shipments increased by 7.5% in 2025 to reach record highs, after increasing 22.7% in 2024 from 2023. This surge has now met with protectionist measures from over 60 countries.

Among those exports, 10,000 tonnes of hydrogen-produced steel from HBIS’s Zhangjiakou facility were bought by an Italian client.

Wang said this proves green steel has a market, but “while foreign markets can serve as pioneers”, China’s domestic market is “the market we should pay more attention to”.

She added that other countries, similar to China, tend to prioritise support for their own steel industries for national security and employment reasons, meaning China’s vast amount of production still needs to be “digested in the domestic market”. The key, she said, is “matching upstream green steel production and downstream demand”.

“Not every steel plant can simply be built next to a hydrogen pipeline,” Wang said. “Subsidies can help, but they cannot carry the industry forever, and if downstream steelmakers and buyers do not genuinely want low-carbon steel, the cost still has to be borne somewhere.”

Shen also pointed to demand as the bottleneck, “even though hydrogen supply is also a challenge”. Despite signs of growing demand for green steel from the transport sector, such as an agreement between Baowu and automaker Chery, Shen said “this looks more like strategic positioning and supply-chain experimentation than a deep, market-clearing demand pool”.

Nevertheless, she stressed that the “future of hydrogen” should still be in China, thanks to the “foreseeable low cost for hydrogen production”, and as China has “such a complete upstream and downstream supply chain” crossing chemical, metallurgy, transport, and manufacturing.

Song Wanyuan

Across India and beyond, voters are being asked to go to the polls in dangerously high temperatures, with democracy as well as their health at risk. 

By Priyanka Thirumurthy, May 8, 2026

TD Achuthan went to vote at a school at 11am late last month. The 29-year-old resident of Chennai in Tamil Nadu was hoping to avoid long queues that typically form at polling sites later in the day, and the exposure to heat that comes with them.

When he arrived, there were at least 60 people in line, only a third of whom could fit into the shaded corridor. “The rest of us were in an open ground without tree cover and it was a gruelling experience,” says Achuthan.

Several Indian states concluded elections this month. In Chennai, the heat proved punishing for some voters.

Achuthan ended up waiting two hours to vote, one of which was spent baking under the sun. “It was an extremely exhausting experience,” he says. “I had to come back and sleep for a few hours to recover. Despite that, I felt dehydrated.”

As climate change drives temperatures and health risks ever higher, concern is growing that heat is harming suffrage as well as people’s health.

Polling booth officials at a site in Chennai told Dialogue Earth that tents were only erected in sites with more than five voting booths.

Between March and 25 July 2024, which included the campaigning and voting period for India’s last general elections, extreme heat led to over 370 confirmed deaths, according to official numbers some experts say are underestimates. In Uttar Pradesh alone, at least 33 polling staff died on the final day of voting due to intense heat.

On 24 April 2024, India’s minister of road transport, Nitin Gadkari, fainted on stage while addressing an election rally in western Maharashtra state. Shortly after recovering, he posted an update on X saying that he had felt “uncomfortable due to the heat”. Despite the rally occurring at 4.30pm, past the time afternoon temperatures normally peak, the temperature at his campaign site that day was 38C.

The general elections that year saw a voter turnout of 65.8% – a small but significant dip from the 2019 election, where turnout was 67.4%.

India’s capital New Delhi faced the lowest turnout in a decade, while Kerala’s turnout in 2024 was the lowest in the last 25 years. The chief electoral officer of Kerala, Sanjay Paul, told the News Minute that multiple voting sites saw huge turnout after 3pm, with people likely delaying voting due to intense heat. The outlet quoted an assistant returning officer as saying that long queues in the morning meant some people went home and, to avoid the heat, never returned to cast their vote.

There are many factors influencing the elections which took place over the last few weeks, and even before the votes were cast heat was already shaping campaigns.

“We need to urgently study how heat affects voter turnout. Summer elections are going to get increasingly challenging and will adversely impact voters and everyone involved,” says Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads on climate resilience and health at NRDC India, a company which advises on climate issues.

Hitting the most vulnerable

Heat exposure causes fatigue, cognitive impairment and cardiovascular strain, and with city temperatures higher due to the urban heat island effect, many workers struggle to recover after they finish gruelling shifts.

“By the time election day arrives, many workers are already physiologically depleted. Asking them to then stand in long queues in the open sun for hours can tip the balance into genuine health risk,” says Apekshita Varshney, founder of the non-profit HeatWatch.

This impact is likely to be felt disproportionately among the disadvantaged, and may lead to them choosing not to vote, she fears.

“We acknowledge the fact that heat can be quite crippling,” says an Indian election commission official who did not want to be named. They said there are “assured minimum facilities” at every polling station, including adequate shade, and that polling is supposed to open early and go on until 6pm to facilitate voting before and after rather than during peak heat.

A global issue

Between 2022 and 2025, at least 10 elections were affected by heatwaves in eight countries, according to a recent report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. They were the US, Mexico, Spain, France, Romania, India, the Maldives and the Philippines.

In the Philippines in May 2025, a heatwave drove temperatures to dangerous levels during that country’s general election. At some polling stations, voting machines reportedly malfunctioned due to the hot weather, causing delays that exposed voters to even more heat.

During the run up to Mexico’s 2024 general election, temperatures hit 50C in some parts of the country, with scores of deaths attributed to heat.

The US holds its federal elections in November. Even there, high temperatures have been causing problems in politics. In 2024, 11 people were sent to hospital for heat-related issues while waiting to enter an indoor campaign rally in Arizona where President Donald Trump was speaking.

And on 24 June 2025, temperatures at John F Kennedy Airport in New York City reached 102F (39C), making it the site’s hottest June day on record. The city’s vulnerable people including the elderly and chronically ill were cautioned to stay inside. It was the day of voting for the Democratic party mayoral candidate, who was widely expected to go on to be crowned mayor.

The city’s board of elections pledged to install fans and supply water at the polls. But Democratic politicians Gregory Meeks and Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn issued a joint statement four days before the primary stating that “the NYC Board of Elections is not equipped to handle the heat wave”.

The NYC Board of Elections was contacted for comment but did not respond.

Solutions in sight

Experts say heat safety on election day comes down to three things: voting hours that allow peak heat to be avoided; crowd management that avoids people waiting in the sun; and polling booth infrastructure that prevents heat stress.

This could include evaporative coolers, fans and shaded outdoor areas, as well as fast lanes for vulnerable voters such as the elderly. In Chennai, provisions were made for elderly and disabled voters to cast their vote without waiting in line, several voters told Dialogue Earth.

Closing polls at 6pm, as India does, may not be sustainable on a warming planet, some say.

“It is clear from past voting patterns that crowds are highest before 10am and after 3pm. Given the nature of heat, it would be wise to change the timings of voting, allowing people to vote till 9pm instead of 6pm,” says Rajesh K, a researcher at the Integrated Rural Technology Center in Kerala.

A more radical option is to shift when the elections happen to ensure heat is avoided.

General elections in India often fall in the hot months of April, May and June. The primary reason is that the terms of the lower house and state legislatures frequently expire in May or early June, meaning elections are scheduled for the preceding weeks. The monsoon season from June to September is avoided for elections and campaigns as heavy rains can disrupt voting and make large areas inaccessible.

The Election Commission of India says the power to make such a change does not lie with them.

“We don’t have the luxury to tinker with these dates. Any change will need a higher level of decision making,” says the Indian election commission official. This might involve taking up the issue in parliament and passing legislation on it, says former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy.

A shift to winter elections would bring its own institutional challenges, including the availability of teaching staff who constitute a large portion of election duty workers. But as heatwaves’ frequency, intensity and duration rise, conducting elections in the summer is increasingly being seen as a public health risk.

“Even a decade ago, heat was never considered a disruptive factor to the voting turnout. But we can no longer ignore its impact,” says Krishnamurthy.

He wants political parties to engage with the problem and the election commission to raise it as something that must be taken seriously. “Elections can be held between January and April. But this adjustment must be made through all-party consensus [and] legislative change,” he says.

While the debates about shifting long-standing election timetables to accommodate the changing world continue, more rapid responses may be needed to keep people safe in the meantime. Responses that recognise the threat heat has become, and ensure everyone is able to vote safely.

“We already have provisions for election postponement due to security concerns or natural disasters,” says Varshney. “Extreme heat, which is now a declared disaster in multiple states, should qualify on the same basis.”

Priyanka Thirumurthy