The impacts of climate change in Southeast Asia are pushing people to change their livelihoods. Reports of farmers in the Mekong Delta converting their land from rice to shrimp production show the complexity of these economic shifts.
As many of Southeast Asia’s megacities sink, understanding and addressing the problem is key to helping urban populations adapt to climate change.
Singapore has become a straggler among wealthy nations in terms of its efforts to cut carbon emissions growth. Though the government has become a regional leader on some environmental policies, a new analysis shows its carbon emissions have grown faster than almost any country in the world.
New research shows hydropower in the Mekong region will become far less sustainable as droughts force countries to rely on coal and gas power plants, driving up carbon emissions and electricity costs. The findings present a problem for Mekong countries’ dam building plans, as hydropower appears far less green and less reliable than other renewable sources.
Vietnam faces some of the greatest and most urgent threats from climate change of any country in the world. However, a number of new initiatives are starting to address these challenges, ranging from a national transition to green energy to a UN-backed push for sustainable urban development.
Indonesia is pushing to protect peatlands and mangroves from annual fires that are disastrous for the world’s carbon emissions. The efforts are key to the global climate struggle but face a major challenge from the palm oil, pulp and paper and logging industries.
Southeast Asia has been hammered by storms in recent weeks, with flooding displacing thousands and destroying homes. In Laos, residents already displaced for the construction of dams now say they face added dangers from severe weather.
The region faces the threat of increasing natural disasters as global warming makes extreme weather more likely.
A joint forest monitoring project between the governments of Finland and Myanmar and the United Nations takes a conflict-sensitive approach to monitoring forests.
As Southeast Asia emerges from the pandemic, policymakers at both the regional and national levels must implement a green recovery to future-proof the economy and the health and safety of our people and planet.