Expert Opinions & Stories

Adaptation is rapidly emerging as a critical pathway to safeguard communities and ecosystems from the impacts of climate variability which creates unpredictable challenges that are hard to plan for…

While each Small Island Developing State (SIDS) has its own unique characteristics and circumstances, as remote island economies each share similar challenges and opportunities. They have limited…

On this World Meteorological Day, WMO and ESCAP unpack the 2023 theme: Weather, Climate and Water across Generations – through a series of three opinion pieces focused on the Asia-Pacific region,…

The recent climate talks in Egypt have left us with a sobering reality: The window for maintaining global warming to 1.5 degrees is closing fast and what is on the table currently is insufficient to…

Secure and sustainable energy systems are a key driver of economic growth and social development. Together with technological innovations, which open new opportunities, the modern world faces…

The world is facing multiple overlapping challenges. The recovery from COVID-19 and the impacts of climate change along with the food, energy and cost of living crises are straining the economies of…

The Indonesia G20 Presidency has faced unprecedented challenges. The emergence of global geopolitical tensions from the start of 2022 have presented complexities in international relations and…

Floods are a recurring phenomenon in Bangladesh and the adjoining state of Assam, India. The ongoing large-scale flooding here is not an exception. Floods often trigger landslides and large-scale…

The recently released IPCC report ‘Climate Change 2022 Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ published in February 2022 makes it abundantly clear that we must accelerate efforts to decarbonize our…

This year, India and Pakistan have recorded their warmest ever March and April. The pre-monsoon period in South Asia is usually marked with excessively high temperatures, especially in May but early…

The last two years have seen several significant disturbances to global energy markets. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic shutdowns at first depressed demand, leading to significant…

Countries in North and Central Asia are increasingly trying to make their energy sectors greener and more sustainable. With stagnating economic growth and climate change on the horizon, countries are…

The Asia-Pacific region accounts for over half of total final global energy consumption, 85 per cent of which comes from fossil fuels. The associated emissions are expected to increase as the region…

A person in the Asia-Pacific region is four times more at risk of natural hazards than a person in Africa and sixteen times more than someone in North America or Europe. The “riskscape” of the region…

Recent research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that the world is likely to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming much earlier than previously anticipated. The United in…

On 24 September, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, will convene the High-level Dialogue on Energy at summit level, under the auspices of the UN General Assembly. This will be…

Over the past two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has made remarkable progress in managing disaster risk. But countries can never let down their guard. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its epicentre now…

Asia and the Pacific is home to around 60 per cent of the global population with no access to clean cooking solutions. Clean cooking solutions refers to fuel-stove combinations with emissions…

In New York this September, the High-level Dialogue on Energy will be convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations at a summit level. In the first global energy meeting under a UN mandate…

North and Central Asia is on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7: affordable and clean energy, based on aggregated data for the whole subregion. However, general statistics may conceal…