Under the Weather: India’s Climate-Health Intersections and Pathways to Resilience

Why Climate and Health? Why Now? 

Increasing Incidents and Cascading Effects: India is the sixth most affected country in the world by extreme weather events, according to combined estimates from the last three decades. A large share of India’s districts – nearly 40% of them – are at a high to very high risk of extreme weather events. As climate change accelerates, manifesting as floods, cyclones, heatwaves, and droughts on the ground, it is critical to think deeply about not only the immediate destruction, but also the long-drawn, often invisible cascading effects. The impacts of climate change on public health and health systems are concerning: the rising frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are shifting the country’s disease burden (disease occurrence, spread, loss of life) and interrupting the delivery of critical health services (see Figure i and ii). These impacts are not distant or abstract; they have been here, disrupting health systems, undoing community well-being, and impacting economic stability. 

Intensifying Burdens on the most Vulnerable: These adverse consequences disproportionately impact the most vulnerable communities, the least responsible for the crisis, and the least equipped to withstand it, deepening existing inequities.

Staggering Effects on Livelihoods: The climate-health nexus deeply impacts affected people’s ability to work; the associated economic costs are staggering. Rising healthcare expenses, worker absenteeism, and productivity losses are fueling a vicious cycle of poverty and increased vulnerability to climate stressors in the future. Without urgent action, the health impacts of climate change will continue to grow, threatening both human and economic resilience.

What is the Focus of the Report? 

1. An NGO Focus: Given their proximity to the most vulnerable communities, NGOs are uniquely positioned as early responders and trusted partners in addressing on-ground challenges related to the intersection. The report outlines a spectrum of innovative solutions from the NGOs across the adaptation and mitigation continuum that are already making a tangible difference. 

1. Pathways for Philanthropy: The report highlights a clear opportunity for philanthropy to scale proven interventions, foster cross-sector collaboration, and direct resources toward underserved priorities - playing a catalytic role in placing health at the center of India’s climate response.

Solutions Landscape 

Opportunities for Philanthropy 

• Build NGO-centred evidence infrastructure for the climate–health intersection: Philanthropy can invest in local, granular data systems that directly strengthen NGO’s ability to design, target and deliver climate-health interventions. 

• Consolidate and standardize climate–health data across public and private systems to strengthen NGO action: Philanthropy can support shared data standards and platforms that pool climate health data across ministries, private platforms, and civil society, making signals actionable for NGOs on the ground.  Aggregated pharmacy and telehealth data from platforms can also help track caseload shifts and weather linked spikes.

• Increase investments in climate-health adaptation, where NGOs are already leading: Mainstream climate finance and philanthropy have largely focused on mitigation, given its clearer linkage to emissions reduction and the relative ease of quantification and investment. However, this emphasis must be complemented by significantly greater funding for adaptive efforts that build community-level resilience to climate shocks. 

• Anchor regional knowledge exchange as a non-state convener and strengthen NGO-led climate–health action: Philanthropy can play a crucial non-state role by anchoring regional knowledge-exchange platforms that connect government, civil society, and the private sector. This can help proven climate-health mitigation and adaptation practices travel faster and farther. 
• Engage diaspora givers to co-create India’s climate–health technology and knowledge commons: Across India, NGOs are already piloting low-cost, climate-resilient health solutions. These approaches are often highly effective and context-specific, yet remain fragmented, under documented, and difficult to scale due to limited access to patient capital, product development support, and global knowledge networks. International philanthropists with an India footprint can create strategic partnerships through the patient, flexible, long-term capital that de-risks this frontier and accelerates knowledge transfer.

• Build strategic public–private partnerships to embed climate–health metrics in reporting, budgeting, and procurement: Philanthropy could build the adoption muscle inside public systems. This can include establishing state cohorts and peer-learning cycles across health, environment, and disaster management, with NGOs and private providers, aligning methods and making results comparable.