This 92-page consultancy report was prepared for the Climate Change and Development Roundtable and was written by Drs Benjamin Preston, Ramasamy Suppiah, Ian Macadam and Janice Bathols. It outlines the impacts and risks of climate change in the Asia/Pacific region.
Executive Summary
The ‘Anthropocene Era’
The Earth currently finds itself in the midst of what some have termed the 'Anthropocene Era' – a period during which human activities have become a dominate force affecting not only the planet’s landscape, but also its atmosphere. Since the dawn of the industrial evolution of the mid-18th century, humans have contributed to substantial increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide has increased by 36 per cent, methane by 17 per cent, and nitrous oxide by 151 per cent. These changes in the global atmosphere are directly linked to over two centuries of growth in the burning of fossil fuels by humans. The increase of these gases is warming the world. Temperatures have increased by approximately 0.8 °C since 1880, the global sea-level is rising, and Earth is already committed to additional global warming and climate change in the years ahead.
How much warming is likely to occur over the next century? More importantly, how much can the Earth system tolerate before critical thresholds are crossed and widespread, abrupt and/or irreversible consequences affect the global climate, environment, and human societies? A number of international assessments point to a threshold for ‘dangerous’ climate change of approximately 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures. Given historical warming, the current commitment to future warming as well as future growth in greenhouse gas emissions, remaining below such a threshold will necessitate global greenhouse gas emissions reductions on the order of 30-55 per cent below 1990 levels. Under proposed burden sharing schemes, reductions for developed nations would likely be significantly higher. This is one component of the climate challenge facing human society. The other component is how the global environment – its oceans, rivers, forests and biodiversity – and human society will cope with the consequences of climate change. The implications of climate change will very significantly from one region of the world to another, but as this report demonstrates, the Asia/Pacific region is likely to experience significant adverse consequences.
The Asia/Pacific Region in Context
The Asia/Pacific region encompasses some of the planet’s greatest cultural, economic, and ecological diversity. Approximately 60 per cent of the world’s population resides in the region, in communities ranging from major urban centres to remote rural communities. The collective economic activity of the region represents roughly 25 per cent of the global domestic product. Rapid growth in large regional economies such as China and India has elevated human prosperity. However, unless ultimately decoupled from fossil fuel use, such growth also threatens to exacerbate the climate challenge. Furthermore, many of the countries within the Asia/Pacific region are developing nations, still struggling to tap into the global economic market and with little climate footprint. This means low performance in development indicators such as economic diversification, literacy, per capita income, and access to basic food and water security. Meanwhile, ongoing environmental degradation is eroding the valuable goods and services of the region’s natural ecosystems. To combat these disadvantages, significant development assistance flows into the Asia/Pacific region on an annual basis. Australia contributed over A$1 billion in aid to Asia/Pacific nations in 2004/05. These socioeconomic circumstances form the human and environmental context in which climate change and its consequences will be experienced.
The Changing Regional Climate
Climate modelling indicates temperature increases in the Asia/Pacific region on the order of 0.5–2 °C by 2030 and 1–7 °C by 2070. Temperatures are likely to warm more quickly in the arid areas of northern Pakistan and India and western China. In addition, models indicate increasing rainfall throughout much of the region in the decades ahead, including greater rainfall during the important summer monsoon. Yet the potential for changes in monsoon variability as well as for drying of monsoon rains from atmospheric aerosols leave the benefits of such rainfall changes in doubt. Furthermore, winter rainfall is projected to decline in South and Southeast Asia, suggesting increased aridity from the winter monsoon. The region will be affected by a rise in global sea level of approximately 3–16 cm by 2030 and 7–50 cm by 2070 in conjunction with regional sea level variability. Other modelling studies have also indicated the potential for more intense tropical cyclones and changes in important modes of climate variability such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
Asia/Pacific Climate Vulnerability
Multiple factors indicate that the Asia/Pacific region possess a high degree of vulnerability to such climate changes. Many nations within the region already struggle to cope with the current climate variability to which they are exposed including tropical cyclones, rainfall extremes, frequent droughts, and extreme tides. The region is also highly sensitive to climate conditions. For example, widespread coral bleaching was observed in the Indian Ocean in response to anomalously warm conditions during the 1997/98 El Niño event, while cyclones, droughts and floods routinely affect thousands to tends of thousands of individuals each year, with costs measured in both dollars and lives. Meanwhile, the socioeconomic conditions in the region convey little in the way capacity to manage climate impacts.
A review of 186 different regional and national estimates of the potential impacts of future climate change to various sectors within the Asia/Pacific region confirms that there is little room for optimism. At the regional scale, 62 per cent of impact estimates indicated clear adverse consequences, and only 19 per cent indicated clear benefits, with the remaining 20 per cent suggesting the direction of impacts could lean either way. At the national scale, 58 per cent of estimates indicated adverse effects, and only 14 per cent indicated benefits. Furthermore, studies indicated that different sectors have different vulnerabilities to climate change.
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Coastal Communities. All of the studies, whether conducted at a regional or national level, indicated the region’s coasts would experience climate damages in the decades ahead. These damages include coastal inundation and erosion from sea-level rise, the displacement of communities, increased coastal management and defence costs, and the potential for more intense tropical cyclones. Most at risk are the low-lying river deltas of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, and China as well as the small island states.
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Ecosystems and Biodiversity. The natural ecosystems of the Asia/Pacific region will face increasing pressure from human activities and land use change. These factors will reduce the resilience of ecosystems to the effects of climate change. Coral reefs are likely to be damaged from increases in the frequency of bleaching events, while the region is likely to lose 1-13 per cent of its mangrove wetlands – with much larger proportional losses for some individual nations. Changes in the high altitude biomes of the Tibetan Plateau may see desert and steppe systems give way to forests and grasslands. However, existing grasslands of Arid Asia and the boreal forests of China are projected to decline, while wildfires and dieback may affect some tropical forests.
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Disease and Heat-Related Mortality. Changing patterns of temperature and rainfall will likely cause shifts in the distribution of dengue and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. On a local basis, disease risk will increase for some and decrease for others, but regionwide, the net effect is projected to expose millions of additional individuals to such infectious diseases by the end of the century. Higher temperatures may reduce the risk of cold-weather mortality, but increase heat-related mortality, while increased flooding and intensification of tropical cyclones would increase climate-related injuries and deaths.
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Water Resources. Managing water resources to ensure a secure supply to growing populations is already a major challenge in many areas of the Asia/Pacific region. Climate change is likely to further alter the availability of water resources, driven by seasonal reductions in rainfall and runoff in South and Southeast Asia and increases in runoff in other areas, particularly the Pacific Islands. Some river basins may benefit from increasing runoff. Nevertheless, on a regional basis, water stress is likely to affect millions of people throughout the region, and the costs for managing water resources will rise. Furthermore, to the extent that rainfall increases manifest as extreme events, flood risk is also likely to increase.
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Agriculture and Forestry. Studies indicate a high degree of spatial variability in the vulnerability of Asia/Pacific agriculture to climate change. Although increases in summer rainfall alone may benefit crop production and commercial forestry, particularly in South Asia, crop stress from rising temperatures may offset such benefits, particularly for rice yields. Furthermore, areas currently in water crisis, such as northeast China and flood-prone river deltas of Bangladesh and Vietnam, are likely to experience significant land degradation and loss in a changing climate. For the least developed nations, such agriculture impacts may threaten not only food security, but also national economic productivity.
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Regional Economies. The net effect of climate change on regional and national economies is projected to be largely negative. Loss of agricultural revenue and additional costs for managing water resources, coastlines, and disease and other health risks will be a drag on economic activity. Given long-term, sustainable economic development and growth in per capita wealth, such economic impacts may comprise a declining portion of total economic welfare, and regional capacity to effectively manage climate risk is likely to rise. However, a number of Asia/Pacific nations currently have
sluggish or stagnant economic growth that, in some instances, is projected to persist for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, even with growing regional prosperity, localised climate impacts, such as the collapse of a fishery or the inundation of core cropping land, could devastate local economies.
Existing challenges to human security in the Asia/Pacific region may be significantly exacerbated by the broad range of impacts that climate change may bring. Chronic food and water insecurity and epidemic disease may impede economic development in some nations, while degraded landscapes and inundation of populated areas by rising seas may ultimately displace millions of individuals forcing intra and inter-state migration. The implications of such challenges to human security are difficult to anticipate, but there is currently little awareness of the implications and regional management frameworks for addressing climate change-induced security and migration issues are lacking.
Reducing Climate Risk
Climate risk in the Asia/Pacific region may be ameliorated through two complementary strategies: greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation will reduce the magnitude of climate change to which the region is exposed over the long-term, but will do little to address climate risk over the near-term, particularly in the least developed nations where climate vulnerability is substantial yet responsibility for global greenhouse gas emissions is quite small. Under the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change, the developed world has already agreed to take the lead in pursuance of greenhouse gas mitigation. Yet, as these efforts progress, investments must also be made in increasing the capacity of Asia/Pacific nations to adapt to climate variability and climate change. This may be most effectively achieved by mainstreaming climate change adaptation into development assistance that addresses developing world needs with respect to governance, education, health, technology, security, and disaster management.
Effective implementation of adaptation and capacity building projects is key to reducing future vulnerability of Asia/Pacific nations to climate change. This necessitates the development and maintenance of institutions and human capital that are knowledgeable regarding climate change and capable of effective decision-making, resource allocation, and risk management. At present, there are numerous examples of decision-making that will increase, rather than decrease, the future vulnerability of Asia/Pacific ecosystems and communities to climate change. Reigning in such behaviours and devising sustainable environmental management practices that harmonise economic development and wealth generation with natural resource management and vulnerability reduction is a core regional challenge.
Read more about Understanding Climate Change.
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