Cooling for All

As India enters an era of unprecedented heat, the question is no longer how we cool our habitats, but who has access to comfort, and at what cost. This session brings together two leading voices shaping India’s climate and development agenda to reimagine cooling as a basic right embedded in public health, equity, and dignity.

Drawing on lived realities from rural farms to urban informal settlements, the conversation examines how communities cope with rising heat and how decentralized, need-based innovations, from solar-powered fans to climate-responsive building design, can close the comfort gap. Beyond technology, the discussion turns to the institutional and financial systems that determine who benefits from cooling: policies that overlook the most vulnerable, markets that fail to reach last-mile users, and the structural inequities that shape thermal comfort in everyday life.

Through examples from SELCO’s field work and Godrej’s industry and policy leadership, the speakers chart a pathway where cooling is embedded into development planning through partnerships across government, philanthropy, academia, and industry.

This conversation asks us to envision an India, rural and urban, where comfort is designed in from the start, where materials, habitats, and energy systems work together to reclaim cool as a shared, equitable future.