The ongoing COP29 conference in Baku, is a pivotal moment in climate action, focusing on global cooperation to limit warming to 1.5°C. Key priorities include mobilising financial resources for developing countries to submit ambitious climate plans (NDCs) by 2025 and continuing support through the Fund for Loss and Damage (FRLD) established at COP28. COP29 also aims to strengthen adaptation efforts by setting finance-backed targets for the Global Goal on Adaptation.
While COP29 primarily focuses on international climate initiatives, India must address pressing domestic issues. One key group often overlooked is informal workers in Indian cities. Over 80% of India’s urban workforce is in informal employment, and urban areas play a pivotal role in climate action. Yet, the concerns of this group remain largely absent from both global and domestic macro-level discussions.
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The important role of informal workers in cities
This year has been especially challenging for India’s urban informal workers, who have had to contend with extreme weather events and climate-related health risks. The myriad informal workers — waste pickers, street vendors, domestic workers, home-based workers, construction workers, and safai sathis (sanitation workers), bereft of the privilege of work-from-home, without air conditioners and purifiers — brave it out in the open or cramped informal workplaces. Heatwaves have swept across the country, from the south to the northeast, along with urban flooding during monsoons and a severe air pollution crisis. No region where urban workers live has been left unaffected.
A recent Lancet report highlights the risks of prolonged heat exposure, which has increased the chances of heat-related illnesses, affecting each citizen for at least 100 days annually. Climate change has led to the loss of 181 billion labour hours due to extreme temperatures, which disproportionately affect the informal sector.
In addition to extreme heat, rising flood risks, infectious diseases, and severe air pollution pose significant health threats taking away precious working days. Similarly, the latest data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) indicate a shrinking job market for informal workers — one of the prominent factors possibly being climate impacts on workers. Low wages and disparities persist. Women casual labourers earn only Rs 364 daily, while men earn Rs 537, leading to a precarious existence.
Informal workers contribution not recognised
Although informal workers are essential to India’s labour force and urban living, they remain highly vulnerable. With an estimated 80% of the urban workforce being informal, over 20 crore workers — more than the population of many small countries — contribute significantly to climate resilience in cities but are barely recognised. Waste pickers reduce the trash in landfills through recycling. Construction workers build infrastructure and home-based workers employ mixed-land use and contribute to circular economies. Street vendors foster low-carbon, localised production–consumption economies. Their work must be recognised as low-carbon and sustainable.
These workers lack social protections, formal recognition, and economic security, and now they are bearing the brunt of climate impacts with limited support from the state. Inadequate urban infrastructure at work sites, informal living areas and transport, which already makes informal work difficult, further exposes these workers to climate-related hazards. Rising costs, pandemic aftershocks, and exclusion from climate action discussions deepen the poverty cycle, especially for women and vulnerable groups.
Gaps in current climate policies for urban India
India’s climate policy reveals significant gaps in addressing the needs of informal urban workers. While developed countries at forums like COP29, address the just transition needs of workers to greener economies, they mostly focus on formal workers.
The global South, including India, lacks a strong voice to advocate the unique needs of informal workers. This gap is critical because informal workers in India are largely excluded from climate resilience and adaptation plans. India’s climate action strategy, as outlined in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), emphasises only rural resilience, particularly through initiatives like the rural employment guarantee scheme and rural livelihoods mission. These programmes aim to strengthen rural livelihoods in response to climate threats but do not extend similar protections to urban informal workers.
Although the NDCs acknowledge “Developing Climate Resilient Urban Centres” and reference urban programmes like the Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT, they fail to prioritise urban livelihoods and informal workers.
Climate action not integrated into government plans
The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), launched in 2008, includes eight national missions targeting various sectors like solar energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable habitats in India. However, the NAPCC has not been updated and lacks integration with other climate actions, particularly regarding urban informal livelihoods. Meanwhile, State Climate Action Plans (SCAPs), developed under the NAPCC, suffer from limited state ownership, poor prioritisation, and inadequate vulnerability assessments.
Moreover, India’s climate actions have mainly developed under the disaster management framework, led by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). This approach focuses on immediate disaster responses like floods and heatwaves but limits long-term climate adaptation. It doesn’t address the slow-moving impacts of climate change on informal workers’ daily lives.
Recent efforts like the City Climate Action Plans (CCAPs) lack legal mandates and are not aligned with urban planning. Climate actions across ministries such as the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) are uncoordinated and disconnected from worker concerns, with little engagement from the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE).
What action is necessary?
India, with the world’s largest urban informal workforce, must focus on adaptation and just transition strategies to address their specific climate risks. Integrating informal workers into climate action requires swift updates to labour codes and urban planning to support resilience, skill-building, and urban employment schemes. Programmes like the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) should support these efforts to empower workers.
Urban infrastructure — livelihood spaces, water, sanitation, sheltered areas, storage, and care facilities — is critical to both protect and promote informal livelihoods. This will help evolve climate-resilient urban design for workers. Achieving this requires close coordination among ministries focused on climate, urban planning, and labour.
New climate financing opportunities are needed to support informal livelihoods, leading to adaptive policies and infrastructure. It’s also crucial to conduct thorough, gender-sensitive research to understand how climate change affects informal workers in different regions and sectors. This research will guide policy changes to address climate gaps, making informal workers key to climate solutions and building resilient cities for a sustainable future.