Megatrends, Emerging Issues and Outlooks


affected the ability of natural coastal systems to respond effectively to extreme climate events, rendering them more vulnerable. Some countries, such as China, India and Thailand, are projected to face increased future exposure to extremes, especially in highly urbanized areas, as a result of rapid urbanization and economic growth. Guangzhou and Shanghai in China, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Mumbai and Kolkata in India, Yangon in Myanmar, Bangkok, Thailand, and Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phòng, Viet Nam, are projected to have the largest population exposure to coastal flooding in 2070. Many of these cities are already exposed to coastal flooding, but have limited capacity to adapt due to their fixed location.


Climate-driven mega-disasters are emerging in new areas and new time periods and seasons (Kelly et al. 2013). Consequently, governments and citizens are often unprepared and find it difficult to deal with these entirely new phenomena.


4.3.3 Transboundary issues: infrastructure and common market development


Air pollution, once a local phenomenon, is rapidly going beyond the boundaries of cities, countries and sub-regions. Residual biomass burning in many Southeast Asian countries during the harvest season is causing worsening, persistent haze over the entire region for many weeks each year, leading to major health problems (Marlier et al. 2013). Forest fires in Indonesia in 2015 had multiple impacts on air quality, human health, climate and biodiversity. Meanwhile, scientists recently discovered that black carbon released by biomass burning in upwind areas is quickly accumulating on alpine glaciers in Asia, accelerating their melting (Xu et al. 2009).


New possible regional environmental solutions are emerging, driven by multilateral geopolitical and financial mechanisms. Several


regional and sub-regional environmental


cooperation platforms have recently been strengthened, including APEC, ASEAN+3, the South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP), the North-East Asian Sub-regional Programme for Environmental Cooperation


(NEASPEC), the Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting involving China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (TEMM), the Asian Network for Prevention of Illegal Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP), and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).


4.3.4 Environmental governance: large data- enhanced systems


A potential solution to environmental governance issues involves coordinated adaptation to climate change and disaster risk across sectors and geographical boundaries, including Earth-system approaches and stronger science- policy interfaces together with coordinated assessments and adaptation efforts. Climate change and disaster risk are often closely linked, while many disaster-related losses are caused by extreme climate events. Global adaptation efforts and financial resources, and coordination between those targeting climate change and disaster risk, are often lacking, but this may change under the post-2015 SDG framework and the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, focusing climate change mitigation efforts on fossil fuels often results in little notice being paid to the large amount of carbon released by increasing disasters such as wildfires and drought. Mitigation of disaster risk can be an important part of mitigating climate change, and more effective coordination is emerging. There are potential co-benefits between United Nations conventions on climate change and air pollution, biodiversity and carbon-sink targets. More coordination and better governance across these conventions are expected at global and regional scales in the future.


A revolution of environmental governance is being driven by extensive use of mobile communication, information technology and big data. Rapid development of such technologies in the past several years has provided innovative technical solutions for new environmental disaster early-warning systems. People directly threatened by an approaching disaster event can now be precisely targeted by integrating large data capacities and the mobile devices of vulnerable individuals. Whole new generations of


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