Rising Heat and Toxic Air — The Climate Burden on Gurgaon’s Children

 

Rising Heat and Toxic Air — The Climate Burden on Gurgaon’s Children 

- Kinga Hunyady.

Childhood in Gurgaon is increasingly shaped by two converging climate pressures: extreme heat and hazardous air pollution. Scientific assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirm that South Asia is experiencing more frequent, intense, and prolonged heatwaves due to global warming. For children, this exposure carries disproportionate health consequences. Their bodies heat up faster, dehydration sets in quicker, and prolonged exposure raises risks of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.

Schools across the Delhi-NCR region—including Gurgaon—have repeatedly altered schedules or suspended outdoor activities during peak heat periods. Lost playtime is not trivial; pediatric health research shows outdoor physical activity is essential for bone strength, cardiovascular fitness, and cognitive development. Climate-driven heat is quietly eroding these developmental foundations.

Air quality magnifies the threat. Gurgaon falls within one of the world’s most polluted urban corridors, with monitoring by the Central Pollution Control Board frequently recording “very poor” to “severe” Air Quality Index levels. Climate change aggravates this pollution load. Higher temperatures accelerate ground-level ozone formation, while stagnant heat conditions trap particulate matter close to the surface.

The World Health Organization identifies air pollution as a leading environmental risk to child health, linking it to asthma onset, reduced lung growth, respiratory infections, and increased lifetime risk of chronic disease. Evidence from the Lancet Countdown further shows that children exposed to sustained pollution perform worse in school due to illness-related absences and impaired concentration.

Thus, in Gurgaon, climate change is not a distant environmental shift—it is a daily physiological stressor, constraining movement, damaging lungs, and altering the rhythms of childhood itself.

Sources
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (Heat Extremes, South Asia) • WHO Air Pollution & Child Health • CPCB AQI Data (Delhi-NCR) • Lancet Countdown India Briefs