Eye on Asia | Climate disaster help urgently needed for Asia-Pacific’s poor and vulnerable communities

World leaders are gathering at the United Nations (UN) in New York for the Climate Action Summit tomorrow. Their goal is simple: to increase ambition and accelerate action in the face of a mounting climate emergency.

For many, this means countries decarbonising their economies by 2050; but that is only half the equation. Equally ambitious plans are also needed to build the resilience of vulnerable sectors and communities being battered by climate-related disasters of increasing frequency, intensity and unpredictability.

Nowhere is this reality starker than in the Asia-Pacific, which has suffered another year of devastation. Iran’s floods earlier this year were unprecedented. Floods and heatwaves in quick succession in Japan caused widespread destruction and loss of life. Last year, India’s Kerala state had its worst floods in a century.

In several South Asian countries that had been suffering from drought, weeks of heavy monsoon rains this month unleashed floods and landslides. Across northeast and South Asia, record high temperatures have been set.

The latest research from UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific shows that intense heatwaves and drought are more frequent, unusual tropical cyclones are originating outside traditional risk zones and following new tracks, and floodings are unprecedented. The severity and frequency will only increase as concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere rise.