The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations System’s authoritative voice on weather, climate and water, reported that climate change impacts would increasingly affect the Asian continent.
For the past 40 years, glaciers in the High Mountain Asia region have lost significant mass, and this is accelerating with the exceptional warm and dry conditions exacerbating the mass loss. Melting glaciers cause a rise in sea levels and surface ocean warming has increased rates 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade, which is three times faster than the global average, threatening food and water security and ecosystems of Asia. The northwestern Arabian Sea, Philippine Sea and seas east of Japan also have warmed. Drought and floods would be the most common hazards.
Asia, being the world’s most disaster-prone region, has suffered a lot in the past few decades, due to climate change, ruining lives and destroying livelihoods. The report of WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 noted that Asia’s warming trend was increasing much faster than the global average. The warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 was almost double, compared to the warming trend in the 1961–1990 period.
In 2022, Asia experienced 81 weather, climate and water-related disasters. Most of the events were flood and storm events. In these disasters, which included severe dust storms, more than 5 000 people lost their lives, and 50 million people were affected directly. Economic damages totaled more than $36 billion.
Pakistan received 60% of its normal total monsoon rainfall within just three weeks. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in Pakistan calculated that more than 33 million people, almost 14% of Pakistan’s population, were affected by the unprecedented severe flooding. It also caused significant loss of life and economic damage.
In Japan, the Typhoon Nanmadol, with record-breaking winds and heavy rainfall, affected over 1,300 people, and caused estimated economic damages of about $2 billion. India was affected by extreme weather events almost every day in the first nine months of the year 2023 and in 86% of days from January to September, leading to the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, according to a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
Economic losses in 2022 due to disasters, such as floods and droughts, exceeded the average of the 2002–2021 period. Floods caused a loss for Pakistan over $15 billion, followed by China with over $5 billion, and India, with over $4.2 billion. Economic losses in 2022 due to droughts was over $7.6 billion that exceeded 2002–2021 average ($2.6 billion) by nearly 200%.
The important area of climate adaptation planning must be centered on agriculture, since expected increase in the severity of extreme events in Asia would impact the agricultural sector. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the UN, said: “Impact-based forecasting, early warnings for all, and their translation into anticipatory action are examples of the transformative adaptation needed to strengthen the resilience of food systems in Asia.”
The majority of the rural people in Asia, more than 2.2 billion people, depend upon agriculture and agriculture-related occupations for their livelihoods. Already the yields of major crops such as rice and wheat were stagnant and declining resulting in declining investments in agriculture.
Instead of attending the concerns of farmers, several neoliberal governments in Asia had been reducing the public investments in agriculture and opted for encouraging the entry of big corporations in agriculture through liberalization policies.
Obviously, big corporates were more concerned with reaping huge profits from agribusiness than feeding the poor and raising the income of poor peasants. So, the state policies have to be re-oriented to safeguard the people’s interests. Enhancing food system resilience is a high priority in Asia and it was also included in the Paris Agreement on climate change. Effective early warning services and forecasts on weather and climate timescales are essential for agriculture and food security.
For the welfare of Asian people also, it is necessary to keep the global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century and to pursue viable measures for the net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. There were more expectations over the outcome of the UN climate conference, COP28, held in December at Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
However, low- and middle-income countries across the globe, including the Asian nations, were disappointed over the failure of COP28 to secure firm assurances from the developed countries, who have the greatest historical responsibility for climate change, in generating the finance needed to end the era of fossil fuels and for future climate action. The developing nations needed $100 billion a year to cover losses from natural disasters and rising seas. The million-dollar question is how to operationalize the Loss and Damage Fund agreed at COP27 and how to translate the COP28 agreement to end the era of fossil fuels into actual practice.
N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2024
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us