On September 2, 2025, Bhubaneswar became the first Indian city to release an Integrated Heat and Cooling Action Plan (IHCAP) to comprehensively tackle two growing crises—rising heat stress and the explosion in air conditioning demand.

Heat stress is not new to India. Over the past two decades, the country has experienced increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves that have claimed thousands of lives, reduced worker productivity, and strained health systems. But the crisis has changed. Cities are now caught in a vicious cycle of heat and cooling: higher temperatures and humidity drive-up air-conditioning use, which worsens the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and greenhouse gas emissions. This, in turn, makes cities even hotter—and more dependent on cooling.