The Asia-Pacific region, home to more than half of the world’s population and some of its fastest-growing economies, stands at a crossroads in the battle against climate change. Rising sea levels, extreme heatwaves, and stronger tropical cyclones are already hitting the region harder than most, forcing governments to confront an urgent question: how to hold back the worsening climate crisis.
Experts say that while the region contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, it also has some of the world’s greatest potential for climate solutions. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) stresses that regional cooperation, clean energy investment, and stronger climate adaptation measures are key to reducing future risks.
1. Transitioning to Clean Energy
Coal remains a dominant energy source for several Asia-Pacific nations, including China, India, and Indonesia. Experts suggest that rapid investment in renewable energy—solar, wind, and hydro—could drastically cut emissions. Countries like Japan and South Korea have already pledged net-zero targets by 2050, while China aims for carbon neutrality by 2060.
2. Strengthening Regional Cooperation
Climate change does not respect borders. Collaborative projects such as cross-border renewable energy grids, joint disaster preparedness initiatives, and knowledge-sharing platforms could accelerate climate action across the region.
3. Enhancing Adaptation Measures
From building climate-resilient infrastructure to improving early warning systems for floods and storms, adaptation is as important as mitigation. Small island nations in the Pacific, such as Fiji and Tuvalu, are already leading global discussions on climate resilience due to their frontline exposure to sea-level rise.
4. Mobilizing Climate Finance
Developing nations in the Asia-Pacific often lack sufficient funds to invest in climate solutions. International financial support, along with innovative funding mechanisms like green bonds, can help bridge the gap.
The stakes are high. Without decisive action, the World Bank warns that climate change could push tens of millions of people in the region into poverty by 2050. But with political will, technological innovation, and regional solidarity, Asia-Pacific nations have the power to slow the pace of climate change—and protect both their people and the planet.
LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) – The heatwave in Saudi Arabia blamed for the deaths of 1,300 people on the haj pilgrimage this month was made worse by climate change, a team of European scientists said on Friday.
Temperatures along the route from June 16 to 18 reached 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) at times and exceeded 51.8 C at Mecca’s Great Mosque.
The heat would have been approximately 2.5 C (4.5 F) cooler without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to a weather attribution analysis, opens new tab by ClimaMeter.
ClimaMeter conducts rapid assessments of the role of climate change in particular weather events.
The scientists used satellite observations from the last four decades to compare weather patterns from 1979 to 2001 and 2001 to 2023.
Although dangerous temperatures have long been recorded in the desert region, they said natural variability did not explain the extent of this month’s heatwave and that climate change had made it more intense.
The assessment also found that similar past events in Saudi Arabia occurred in May and July, but now June experiences more severe heatwaves.
“The deadly heat during this year’s haj is directly linked to fossil fuel burning and has affected the most vulnerable pilgrims,” said Davide Faranda, a scientist at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research who worked on the ClimaMeter analysis.
Climate change has made heatwaves hotter, more frequent and longer lasting. Previous findings by scientists with the World Weather Attribution group suggest that, on average globally, a heatwave is 1.2 C (2.2 F) hotter than in preindustrial times.
Medical authorities generally do not attribute deaths to heat, but rather to the heat-related coronary or cardiac illnesses exacerbated by high temperatures. Still, experts said it is likely that extreme heat played a role in many of the 1,300 haj deaths.
“The idea that an activity so central to the Muslim faith is now so dangerous needs to be a wake-up call,” said Mohamed Adow, director of nonprofit Power Shift Africa. “Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest oil producing nations in the world and they often act to frustrate and delay climate action. They need to realise their actions have consequences.”
ASTANA — The Central Asia Climate Change Conference (CACCC-2024) held in Almaty from May 27 to 29 addressed issues of sustainable water and land management, energy, food security and environmental sustainability amid climate change, reported the World Bank’s press service.
Dubbed Bridging Climate Goals with Action: Making Ambitions a Reality this year, the conference brought together over 400 participants to review progress, challenges, and gaps in executing climate commitments, as well as carbon neutrality, green transition, and security.
Central Asian experts also explored collective efforts to reduce climate-related disaster risks and discussed available platforms and capacity for bolstered regional cooperation on climate change adaptation.
According to Zafar Makhmudov, Executive Director of the Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia (CAREC), the conference aims to strengthen regional cooperation and increase Central Asia’s resilience. The region’s agricultural economy, aging infrastructure, and rapid population growth make it vulnerable to the adverse effects of a rapidly changing climate.
Elaborating on climate finance, World Bank Regional Director for Central Asia Tatiana Proskuryakova emphasized the importance of tackling a wide range of issues simultaneously, from adopting and implementing green policies to deploying green financing and investing in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Caroline Milow, Programme Manager for the Green Central Asia Initiative at the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), stressed that Central Asia is one step ahead of many other regions globally by adopting the Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.
A parallel training program is held for content makers and journalists from Central Asian countries to raise climate issue awareness and build the capacity of media professionals.
The conference serves as a preparatory stage for discussing the participation of the Central Asian governments at the upcoming 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is slated for Nov. 11-22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The conference is expected to result in signing several memoranda of understanding.
Climate-induced catastrophes have devastating global effects, from intense heatwaves to heavy rainfall.
In 2023, record-breaking heatwaves hit much of continental Europe and resulted in wildfires and flash floods that took lives.
In China, typhoons have forced school closures and evacuations. Meanwhile, in South Asia, rising temperatures and longer monsoon seasons are increasing cases of mosquito-borne dengue fever.
Last week, the United Nations published a new report on climate change and found that countries agreeing to fight global warming by signing the Paris accord had only made limited progress.
The 2015 Paris Agreement is a legally binding treaty to limit the global temperature increase this century to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. Experts have warned past that level, the problems arising from widespread flooding, droughts and heatwaves could become unmanageable.
As weather patterns continue to become more volatile, the prospect of climate-induced migration is increasingly becoming a core issue.
According to the UN, extreme weather events, including heavy rainfall and droughts, have already caused “an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year”.
Here’s everything you need to know about climate-induced migration:
How much of an issue is climate displacement?
Climate-induced migration is a movement pattern caused by the effects of climate-related disasters, including droughts leading to a food and farming crisis.
Ezekiel Simperingham, global lead on migration and displacement for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told Al Jazeera: “Climate-related migration and displacement is becoming one of the defining challenges that we are seeing as a humanitarian network. We’re not just seeing it in one region … we’re seeing it across different regions. We’re seeing it manifest in very different ways.”
According to Climate Refugees, an organisation documenting the growing threat of climate displacement, climate change can exist as a “threat multiplier”.
“Exacerbating existing risks and creating new ones like food and water insecurity and competition over resources, which contributes to conflict and compound displacement,” it said.
For those who fled conflict and seek refuge in a new country, climate change will direly affect an already displaced population.
Eujin Byun, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Al Jazeera western and central Africa, which suffer from frequent flooding, are also dealing with continuing conflict.
“So its not just one factor pushing this vulnerable displaced population, but it’s also that very complex dynamic that they have to keep moving around,” Byun said.
Climate-induced displacement vs ‘climate refugees’
While many climate-displaced peoples are also fleeing conflict, climate organisations are wary of referring to them as climate refugees and find the phrase limiting.
In international refugee law, the term “climate refugee” does not exist, and that type of migration does not qualify for protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Wildfires burn in the village of Sykorrahi, near Alexandroupolis town, in the northeastern Evros region, Greece [File: Achilleas Chiras/AP]
Under the UN convention, a refugee is defined as a person who “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of [their] nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to … return to it”.
Byun explained that referring to a person as a climate refugee limits the complex situation because the term would mean that a person fled strictly because of a climate event and not from other issues affecting the country.
“I think part of the reason why people are grappling with the terminology, and I think part of the reason why we try and have a more expansive approach is because we’re also seeing that people are moving in very different ways because of climate change,” Simperingham added.
Sanjula Weerasinghe, coordinator of migration and displacement at the IFRC, also told Al Jazeera that only some people are moving in the same way that refugees do, and more often than not they’re making decisions based on various factors.
“Some of it will be related to climate, but some of it may be related to the governance around where they live. Some of it relates to their livelihoods, which may be impacted by climate, but preexisting conditions and how they were able to or unable to earn an income,” Weerasinghe said.
“To just highlight the climate as the key reason why is not entirely accurate.”
Where are people moving to?
According to the Migration Data Portal, in 2022 about 8.7 million people in “88 countries and territories were living in internal displacement as a result of disasters”.
The top five countries with the highest levels of internally displaced people (IDPs) were Pakistan, the Philippines, China, India and Nigeria because of weather-related issues such as floods and storms.
Byun said there are two displaced populations: those internally displaced and those who left for neighbouring countries.
“They [people affected by climate change] don’t really want to cross the Mediterranean because they still have their farm to keep, they still have property back in their country,” she said.
So narratives of a “flood of refugees” coming to the Global North are not the reality and are not helpful in understanding climate migration, Simperingham added.
Cars are submerged in a flooded area in the aftermath of Storm Daniel in Megala Kalyvia, Greece [Giannis Floulis/Reuters]
What can be done?
As climate-induced migration becomes one of the defining humanitarian struggles worldwide, the UN has said the world must invest in preparedness to “prevent further climate-caused displacement”.
The UN has also created a Refugee Environmental Protection Fund to invest in reforestation and clean cooking programmes in climate-vulnerable areas.
Simperingham explained one of the opportunities related to climate migration is that efforts can start before people have moved to address their humanitarian needs.
“What I mean is better understanding the communities, the parts of the world that are at the highest risks of the impact of climate, especially where they are intersecting with other risks and vulnerabilities”, he said.
But, some argue there needs to be more discussion on solutions from the global community.
“What can be done to stop that same situation happening again? What are the options for people to move within their country and sustain their resilience and wellbeing? So that’s an area – and that’s an agenda that needs a lot of attention,” Weerasinghe said.
Temperature records are being toppled across Asia, from India’s summer to Australia’s winter, authorities said on Friday, in fresh evidence of the impact of climate change.
The sweltering temperatures match longstanding warnings from climate scientists and come as countries from Greece to Canada battle record heat and deadly wildfires.
In India, the world’s most populous country, officials said this August was the hottest and driest since national records began more than a century ago.
The month falls in the middle of India’s annual monsoon, which usually brings up to 80 per cent of the country’s yearly rainfall.
But despite heavy downpours that caused deadly floods in the country’s north earlier this month, overall rainfall has been far below average.
August saw an average of just 161.7 millimetres, 30.1 mm lower than the previous August record in 2005, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
That has left the country baking in unrelenting heat. “The large rainfall deficiency and weak monsoon condition is the main reason,” the IMD said.
Authorities in Japan also said on Friday that the country had experienced its hottest summer since records began in 1898.
Temperatures from June to August were “considerably higher” than average across the north, east and west of the country, the weather agency said.
In many locations “not only maximum temperatures but also minimum temperatures” reached record highs, it added.
In Australia, this winter was the warmest on record, with an average temperature of 16.75 degrees Celsius for the season running from June to August.
That is a hair above a record set in 1996 and the highest average winter temperature since the country’s records began in 1910, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
‘More intense, more frequent’
Climate change has fuelled searing temperatures across the globe already this year, with July being the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.
Scientists have long warned that climate change produces heatwaves that are hotter, longer and more frequent.
And the warming El Nino weather pattern could turbocharge the heat further, though its effects are likely to become more apparent later in the year as it strengthens.
Heatwaves are among the deadliest natural hazards, with hundreds of thousands of people dying from preventable heat-related causes each year.
In developed countries, adaptations including air conditioning can help mitigate the impact.
But even in wealthy Japan, authorities said at least 53 people died of heatstroke in July, with almost 50,000 needing emergency medical attention.
The effects of heat are unevenly distributed, with small children and the elderly less able to regulate their body temperatures and thus more vulnerable.
Those who have to work outside are also particularly at risk. Even a healthy young person will die after enduring six hours of 35-degree Celsius warmth coupled with 100 per cent humidity.
But extreme heat does not need to be anywhere near that level to kill people, experts warn.
John Nairn, a senior extreme heat adviser at the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said last month that heatwaves are “becoming much more dangerous”.
“It’s the most rapidly emerging consequence of global warming that we are seeing,” he told AFP in an interview.
“People are far too relaxed about the signs,” he lamented. “It will only get more intense and more frequent. “
![Wildfires burn in the village of Sykorrahi, near Alexandroupolis town, in the northeastern Evros region, Greece [File: Achilleas Chiras/AP]](https://asiandiplomacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/AP2-300x200.webp)
![Cars are submerged in a flooded area in the aftermath of Storm Daniel in Megala Kalyvia, Greece [Giannis Floulis/Reuters]](https://asiandiplomacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20-300x200.webp)
