According to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Provisional Statement on the State of Global Climate in 2012, released at the Doha Climate Change Conference on 28 November 2012, the years 2001-2011 were among the warmest on record and the first ten months of 2012 yielded above-average temperatures globally.

This new edition of the Global Climate Risk Index presented by Germanwatch at the UN climate summit in Doha analyses to what extent countries have been affected by extreme weather events and has taken into account the most recent available data from 2011 as well as for the period 1992-2011.

This World Bank report is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything and spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4°C, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.

Since 2002, the Indian state of Odisha has been undertaking a grassroots awareness campaign on “dos and don’ts” during heat wave conditions through the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) program.