Climate Change: Southeast Asia’s Existential Threat

Summary

According to the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), human-induced climate change is affecting weather and climate extremes in every region, evidenced by the increasing number of adverse weather events around the globe in the past few years. There is no single inhabitable region of earth that has not been affected by climate change, but its impacts differ across regions. For Southeast Asia, the prediction is for more extreme cyclones, uneven increases in temperatures and rainfall, and attendant flooding and inundation in some parts of the mainland.

Climate change is not an anticipated threat but a present and real crisis that has already been affecting Southeast Asia. Tropical cyclones, extreme rainfall, floods, loss of biodiversity, temperature increases and rising sea levels are happening with increasing frequency and high intensity. Some are slow-onset events that take place over extended periods of time (such as temperature increases, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification), while others are fast-onset events (such as tropical cyclones, extreme flooding, and landslides).

The prevailing advice from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is to retire the names of tropical cyclones that were particularly deadly or costly. In the list of fifty-four tropical cyclone names that have been retired, twenty-four of them are associated with countries in Southeast Asia; namely, the Philippines and Vietnam. Names of super typhoons like Haiyan and Mangkhut, familiar to millions of residents in the region, are no longer in use because of the massive casualty numbers and extensive economic damage they have caused.

Southeast Asia suffers disproportionately from climate change. Disproportionality comes from two aspects. First is the region’s disproportionate exposure to the number of climate disasters and extreme weather events. Southeast Asia is already predisposed to natural hazards, with high exposure to multiple geophysical hazards that are not related to climate change. It is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, such as the 2004 Aceh-Andaman earthquake. It is also one of the most volcanically active regions. Climate change will compound these hazards. Three countries in Southeast Asia—Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand—suffer the greatest long-term risks of climate change and, according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, were listed among the top ten most affected countries from 2000 to 2019. The burden on Southeast Asian countries to adapt to climate change is therefore exceptionally high.