The Government of Tamil Nadu, in partnership with the UK Government, has launched a Heat Resilience Centre to strengthen the State’s capacity to address rising extreme heat risks. The initiative is supported under the UK’s Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA) programme and is implemented with technical partnership from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI). The programme will run until September 2026.
The Heat Resilience Centre will function as the nodal institution for coordinating heat-risk management across sectors in Tamil Nadu. Its key objectives include establishing a scientific and institutional governance framework, building technical capacity across departments such as health, urban development, disaster management and planning, generating climate data, evidence and policy tools, supporting city- and district-level heat action plans, and developing bankable projects to mobilize funding from development banks, philanthropies and climate finance institutions.
With this initiative, Tamil Nadu becomes one of the first states in India to create a dedicated institutional mechanism focused on extreme heat resilience.
