State of the climate in Asia 2023
Asia remained the world’s most disaster-hit region from weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023. Floods and storms caused the highest number of reported casualties and economic losses, whilst
Asia remained the world’s most disaster-hit region from weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023. Floods and storms caused the highest number of reported casualties and economic losses, whilst
On the Brink? A Report on Climate Change and Its Impact in Kashmir documents the disappearance of many small glaciers from the region's mountains, the western Himalayas. The report warns that receding Himalayan glaciers could jeopardize water supplies for hundreds of millions of people. Other climate-related changes include rising sea levels that could threaten Indian cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata, more floods and droughts, more disease, and lower crop yields.
This book identifies how climate change policy uncertainty may affect investment behaviour in the power sector. For power companies, where capital stock is intensive and long-lived, those risks rank among the biggest and can create an incentive to delay investment. The analysis results show that the risk premiums of climate change uncertainty can add 40% of construction costs of the plant for power investors, and 10% of price surcharges for the electricity end-users. This book also tells what can be done in policy design to reduce these costs.
This report considers the implications of the Kyoto Protocol on competitiveness and addresses the WTO-compatibility of measures to offset competitive losses. From the outset the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have had to contend with perceived tension between effective action to slow climate change and maintenance of competitiveness. This report explores the nature of the concerns over competitiveness, trying to dissect them in a meaningful way and assess the need for concern.
This paper discusses the possibilities and constraints for adaptation to climate change in urban areas in low and middle-income nations. These contain a third of the world's population and a large proportion of the people and economic activities most at risk from sea-level rise and from the heatwaves, storms and floods whose frequency and/or intensity climate change is likely to increase.
This study looks at trends in GHG emissions in different regions across the world, and analyses the major drivers. It provides an overview of the policies, strategies and measures being adopted and planned worldwide to combat climate change. It compares the different approaches adopted in different regions and the reasons for differences in emphasis. It assesses the measures in terms of their expected impacts on the key WEC objectives of energy accessibility, availability and acceptability.
Sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change is a serious global threat. The scientific evidence is now overwhelming. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming could well promote SLR of 1m-3m in this century, and unexpectedly rapid breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets might produce a 5m SLR. In this paper, the authors have assessed the consequences of continued SLR for 84 developing countries.
This report explores ways in which an integrated climate change-foreign policy approach might improve prospects for a more effective global climate change regime. Such a regime would cover actions to mitigate or adapt to climate change in the near and long term and be characterized by an international agreement that would see wide global participation following the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Protocol. This is important because climate change is not just an environmental issue, being connected to fundamental social, economic and geopolitical issues.
This report gives a detailed account of emissions trading schemes and their potential for environmental mitigation and profit generation. The authors cover the U.S. acid rain program, the Kyoto protocol and its clean development mechanism, the European Union emissions trading scheme, climate exchanges, China's pilot programs, and the possibility of linking up these disparate systems.
The adaptation and climate change fields continue to expand rapidly. The scientific understanding of climatic change projections and the associated impacts from these changes, as well as the understanding of the vulnerabilities faced by human societies and structures, will continue to evolve over time. In the same way, procedures and techniques for planning for and adapting to these impacts and addressing vulnerabilities will continue to become more effective over time.
The global debate over who should take action to address climate change is extremely precarious, as diametrically opposed perceptions of climate justice threaten the prospects for any long-term agreement. Poor nations fear limits on their efforts to grow economically and meet the needs of their own people, while powerful industrial nations, including the United States, refuse to curtail their own excesses unless developing countries make similar sacrifices.