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Megatrends, Emerging Issues and Outlooks


reef systems. Extreme water levels will occur when sea- level rise related to longer-term climate change combines with seasonal high tides, inter-annual and inter-decadal sea-level variations, and storm-caused surges (Keener et al. 2013). Some megacities, such as Bangkok, Thailand, and Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, are also reaching a tipping point of major consequences due to sea-level rise and sinking land.


4.2.3 Climate change and increasing disaster risk


Spatially heterogeneous climate change has been observed over the region, compared to the global mean. The Asia and the Pacific region is among those experiencing significant increases in climate extremes, and the trend will probably continue for decades (IPCC 2013). A rise in record-breaking precipitation events attributable to climate warming has been detected over Southeast and South Asia in the past three decades (Lehmann et al. 2015).


There is evidence across Asia and the Pacific of significant increases in the intensity and/or frequency of many extreme events such as heat waves, tropical cyclones, prolonged drought, intense rainfall, snow avalanches and severe dust storms. The region accounted for 91 per cent of the world’s total deaths and 49 per cent of the world’s total damage due to natural disasters in the last century. Most global and regional climate projections indicate highly differentiated climate change impacts across the sub-regions and different economic sectors of Asia and the Pacific by 2050 (IPCC 2014b).


Climate models project regional temperature increases of around 0.5–2°C by 2030, when the region is also projected to experience an increase in global sea level of approximately 3–16 centimetres, and the potential for more intense tropical cyclones and changes in important modes of climate variability such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The majority of the region’s estimated 500 million rural poor are subsistence farmers occupying mainly rain-fed land. The impacts of such disasters range from hunger and susceptibility to disease to loss of life, income or livelihoods. Climate change is becoming the foremost development issue in the region (AASA 2012).


Extreme climate events are projected to become the new normal, with increasing frequency and intensity in the coming decades. Hurricanes and typhoons are migrating from the tropics towards the North and South poles, with tropical storms no longer peaking in the tropics as often as they did 30 years ago. Instead, storms are increasingly reaching their maximum strength at higher latitudes (Kossin et al. 2014), moving pole-wards at about 53 kilometres per decade in the northern hemisphere and 61 kilometres per decade in the southern hemisphere, a total shift of about 1º latitude per decade. The biggest moves have occurred in the Pacific and southern Indian Oceans. More typhoons and hurricanes reach above 40º north on the east coasts of Northeast Asia and North America. In summer 2015, three major typhoons hit northern China, Japan and Korea, moving north a record distance. Meanwhile, fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million square kilometres (25.3 per cent) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7 per cent increase in the length of the global mean fire weather season. Studies show a doubling (108.1 per cent increase) of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons (41 days above the historic mean) and an increase in their global frequency across 62.4 million square kilometres (53.4 per cent) during the second half of the study period (Jolly et al. 2015).


Disaster losses are multiplying due to increasing climate- driven risks and the exposure of a higher degree of urbanization and infrastructure. The Asia and the Pacific region has suffered more losses from disasters than other regions in the world. Of the ten worst disasters of the 21st century caused by natural events, seven occurred in Asia and the Pacific. This trend is expected to continue for the coming decades, accompanying demographic growth and socio-economic expansion. Disaster impacts are likely to increase with the rising population and rapid and unplanned urbanization, alongside climate variability and extremes food price fluctuations, financial shocks and weak governance systems (Alcantara-Ayala et al. 2015).


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