• 89pc of Pakistan’s population trapped in deadly combination of extreme heat, lack of access to air conditioning
• Chicago University study says 377,000 lives projected to be lost each year by 2050, including 150,000 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: As extreme heat events become more frequent, most poor countries lack the resources to power the cooling systems needed to adapt to rising temperatures, resulting in 10 times more deaths compared to their wealthier counterparts.

According to a new study by the Climate Impact Lab, headquartered at the University of Chicago, climate-driven temperature changes are on track to cause about 430,000 more deaths annually by 2050, and cooling systems can play a major role in preventing these deaths.

Areas in 18 countries—home to 676 million people— are trapped in a deadly combination of extreme heat and lack of cooling, described as a ‘mortality-cooling trap’ (MCT) by the study.

As many as 377,000 lives are projected to be lost each year starting in 2050 due to warmer temperatures in these countries, including Pakistan, Nigar, Nepal etc.

All of these people live in either low-income or lower middle-income countries today, mostly in northern sub-Saharan Africa such as Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad. The rest live in southern Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar. The study noted that these countries will not be able to respond in the same way as richer countries due to energy affordability constraints.

For instance, the projected increase in electricity use per person in Niger will be 1/9th that of Saudi Arabia, and communities in Niger will lose 27,000 more lives annually in 2050 due to a warmer climate than its wealthier counterpart.

According to the study, the largest city in each MCT country by population, together accounting for more than 80 million people in their metro areas, all 18 of them are projected to see increases in electricity consumption that are below the global median, and 10 of them are also projected to experience significant net increases in temperature-related mortality.

“Across the globe, more than 20 large cities exceed those same thresholds, with Pakistan (9 cities), Bangladesh (2 cities), and Sudan (2 cities) having the most, highlighting areas that will be hindered from adapting to heat via electricity-dependent interventions.”

The report estimates that 89 per cent of Pakistan’s population could live in affected regions, with 57 additional temperature-related deaths per 100,000 people and a slight decline in climate-induced electricity consumption by mid-century. The deadly combination of extreme heat and lack of access to AC could lead to over 150,000 more deaths each year by 2050.

“We’ve identified the places most at risk of seeing more people die from the heat and least able to power up ACs to save them, so people and governments can zero in on saving the greatest number of lives,” said Ashwin Rode, a fellow at the Climate Impact Lab and director of scientific research at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).

Despite massive solar installations, adaptation for countries like Pakistan remains complicated. “Increasing access to electricity through renewable sources such as solar can be an important adaptation strategy and will definitely help. Yet the high cost of installing and running energy-intensive cooling technologies like AC will continue to keep it out of reach for large sections of the population,” Rode told Dawn.

Earlier this year, the FBR chairman said that out of 42 million households, at least 7 per cent own air-conditioners in Pakistan, Nukta reported.

‘Unequal access to cooling’

According to energy expert Dr Khalid Waleed, Pakistan’s projected ‘mortality-cooling trap’ is not simply a shortage-of-electricity problem but fundamentally a problem of affordability, reliability and unequal access to cooling.

He agreed with Rode, saying that the need for cooling may not translate into actual electricity consumption because many households cannot afford air conditioners, efficient fans or increasingly expensive electricity, while unreliable grids further constrain adaptation. “In economic terms, this is suppressed demand, not an absence of demand,” the expert noted.

He said the abovementioned projection should be understood as a warning rather than an unavoidable outcome. “It is based on a middle-of-the-road development pathway, approximately 3°C of warming by 2100, and largely ‘status quo’ adaptation behaviour,” Dr Waleed said, adding that rapid shift towards distributed solar energy demonstrated that technological and policy changes could alter this trajectory despite some socioeconomic limitations.

Similarly, the CIL report also suggested reforms in the power sector, early warning systems, heat action plans, and improved temperature forecasts for cities to adapt to heat.

Dr Waleed, also a research fellow at Sustainable Policy Development Institute, agreed. Affordable electricity, resilient distribution networks, efficient cooling appliances, public cooling spaces, heat-health action plans, urban greening and targeted social protection must all be treated as essential climate-adaptation infrastructure, he said. “The real danger is not that electricity consumption fails to rise; it is that lethal heat rises faster than people’s capacity to pay for protection,” he added.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2026