“By 11 am, the sun feels like it’s piercing through the skin… By evening, our feet are swollen, and we can’t even feel our toes,” says Radha, a 46-year-old street vendor in Govindpuri, South Delhi. Like thousands of informal workers across the capital, Radha has shifted her working hours to pre-dawn and post-sunset just to survive Delhi’s blistering summers. But even these adjustments, meant to avoid peak heat, come at a high cost—physically, financially, and emotionally.
“We spend ₹60 a day just on water,” adds Mahesh, a cycle rickshaw puller. “If we fall ill from the heat, we lose ₹500 or more daily. And still, we go out. We have no choice.”
These stories are not isolated. They echo the findings of a comprehensive new qualitative research report titled ‘Labouring Through the Climate Crisis’, released by Greenpeace India in collaboration with the Workers’ Collective for Climate Justice South Asia. Based on extensive fieldwork, the report sheds light on the lived experiences of informal workers—street vendors, waste pickers, domestic workers, and rickshaw pullers—as they navigate the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis in Delhi.
Launched on International Workers’ Day 2025, the report reveals that climate-induced disruptions like heatwaves, floods, and pollution are slashing incomes, triggering health crises, and trapping workers in debt cycles. Street vendors, who once earned a stable ₹1,000 a day, now report fluctuating earnings between ₹300-₹1,200. Rickshaw pullers, already earning a modest ₹400–₹500 a day, are pushed further into economic distress due to mounting health expenses and days lost to extreme weather.
Health impacts are another central theme of the report. Exposure to extreme heat has resulted in cases of dizziness, fainting spells, dehydration, urinary tract infections, respiratory distress, and chronic fatigue, particularly among women. The lack of access to toilets and safe drinking water further heightens these risks, especially for domestic workers and waste pickers who spend long hours working without relief or medical attention.
The qualitative findings of this report align with an earlier study conducted in Delhi’s informal settlements by researchers at the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG). The 2019 study, published in Environmental Research Letters in late 2024, analysed the experiences of 396 informal workers during the peak summer months. It found that high temperatures cause not only health deterioration but also significant income losses. Workers reported reduced productivity, lower attendance due to illness, and increased expenditure on essentials like water, ice, and medicine. “Urban areas like Delhi are especially vulnerable to extreme temperatures,” said Dr. Saudamini Das, lead author of the IEG study, emphasising the urgent need for city-level climate adaptation policies.
Women in the informal economy face multiple burdens: rising temperatures don’t relieve them of domestic responsibilities. Many report intensified mental and physical strain from heat-related stress, unpaid care work, and reduced incomes. The climate shocks trigger debt and destitution. Informal workers rely heavily on private lenders at high interest rates, often borrowing just to survive the next heatwave or restock after flooding.
The qualitative study also points out that green transitions, like the push for electric rickshaws or modern recycling facilities, often exclude the poorest. “Those who have money will buy e-rickshaws and get licences. For us, we neither have a home nor land; we just earn and eat here,” said one rickshaw puller. Waste pickers, likewise, find themselves locked out of formal recycling chains as new material recovery facilities become privatised or inaccessible.
The report was released alongside the formation of the Workers’ Collective for Climate Justice – South Asia, a new regional alliance of worker unions and civil society organisations from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. The collective launched the Polluters Pay Pact, demanding that governments tax oil, coal and gas corporations to fund climate adaptation efforts for the most vulnerable. At the report launch event held in Delhi was joined by six prominent workers’ unions representing lakhs of workers for the signing of the Polluters Pay Pack.
“As temperatures rise, we must do the same. City infrastructure needs to match the adaptation needs of everyone. Vendors, who work outside through the heatwave, are in urgent need of cooling centers, shaded areas, water, and medical care to survive this heatwave season,” said Sandeep Verma of the Youth Organisation for Democratic and Help in Action (YODDHA). “In the scorching heat, Indian workers have nowhere to hide, while the oil executives fueling this crisis are safely seated in air-conditioned offices. This injustice must end by applying the polluter pays principle to those responsible for the climate crisis we’re in.”
Workers across South Asia observed the International Workers’ Day in a series of simultaneous events where they wrote messages about the impacts of extreme weather and their demands on sarees, a six-yard-long unstitched cloth draped by women in South Asia. The initiative, titled ‘Sarees for Solidarity’, carries messages of workers’ union leaders addressing the role of oil and gas corporations and their responsibility for the climate crisis, which will be taken to the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP30), scheduled to be held in Balem, Brazil.
“When the heat rises, it’s not the CEOs of oil and gas companies who suffer—it’s the informal workers out on the streets, with little infrastructure and safety net for adaptation. Our Ground Zero report shows just how devastating this is: income drops, health risks soar, and yet no one’s held accountable. That’s why we’re backing the Polluters Pay Pact, said Amruta S. Nair, Climate and Energy campaigner at Greenpeace India. “Governments must impose taxes on Big Oil, the proceeds of which should be redirected for inclusive adaptation measures for vulnerable communities. Climate justice must begin by protecting those who are least responsible for this crisis, but who pay the heaviest price every day.”
The growing frequency of extreme weather events is not just an environmental issue—it’s a deepening social and economic crisis. Informal workers, who form the backbone of urban economies, are being pushed to the brink by extreme weather events like heatwaves, floods, and pollution, without the safety nets or infrastructure to cope. Their stories call for immediate and inclusive adaptation measures, beginning with accountability. The demand for a Polluters Pay Pact — where fossil fuel giants are taxed to fund worker-centered climate resilience — is not just fair, it’s urgent.
About Author
Leave a Reply