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Expert Opinions & Stories
The summer of 2024 has shattered heat records, starkly illustrating the harsh realities of our warming planet. In India alone, the heatwave has claimed over 100 lives and caused more than 40,000…
Scientific assessments reveal that the Third Pole (TP), encompassing the vast glaciated mountain systems of Asia, is warming at an alarming rate of over 0.3 ºC per decade, surpassing the global…
The ESCAP Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report 2024 flagged the region’s regression on SDG 13, climate action. To reverse this trend, it is imperative that both mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand…
Unpacking 2023, the warmest year on record
2023 was the warmest year on record. The latest Copernicus Climate Change Service highlights that February 2023 to January 2024 was the first time that we experienced 12 consecutive months of…
On 12/13 November 1970, the world’s deadliest tropical cyclone ‘Bhola’ killed more than 300,000 people in Bangladesh. The hard lesson learnt from ‘Bhola’ was not having an effective cyclone warning…
On 4 October 2023, a cloudburst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim triggered a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in the Teesta river basin, which claimed over 30 lives, destroyed the 1,200 MW…
The New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration was unanimously adopted during the G20 Leader’s Summit on 9-10 September 2023. It has many takeaways covering a variety of pressing global challenges, including…
The last few weeks have seen large scale floodings in southwestern China and northwestern India including its capital, Delhi. The deluge in China and India is no exception to an emerging trend…
On 14 May 2023, cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar. Accompanied by sustained winds of 180-190 km/h and violent gusts, torrential rainfall and flooding, Mocha made the landfall in a context of…
Drought is a slow-onset disaster that causes significant damage to the environment. Unlike most other natural hazards, the effects of drought often accumulate slowly over an extended period…
"The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids -- the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” stated UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently as floods submerged much…
Five action points for a resilient future
“The global battle to reduce disaster losses by 2030 will be won or lost in Asia and the Pacific” – Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction.
This…
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…
Cascading risks disrupting food supply chains: transformative adaptation is the way forward
In 2022, the early onset of heatwaves in South Asia was a unique example of compounding and cascading risks in this interconnected world. Heatwaves that struck India early this year coincided with…
Reclaiming our future
The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future.
Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP…
Early onset of heatwaves in South Asia calls for a sub-regional action pathway of climate resilience
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…
As the world enters its second year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus has shifted from containing the spread of the disease towards recovering from socio-economic disruptions. COVID-19…
Last month, the world marked the first anniversary since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 virus as a pandemic. Throughout the year, we witnessed how a virus can bring forth a…
South-East Asia has long endured severe droughts, which occur on average every five years. The prolonged 2015 and 2018 droughts were the worst on record for two decades. They simultaneously affected…
After decades of impressive growth, for the first time, Southeast Asia is experiencing a drop in measured human development. The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will likely take months…