The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
This briefing looks at what the 1.5°C limit means in terms of adaptation and loss and damage for the most vulnerable countries and regions. It finds that slowing down warming is critical to buy us time to adapt and also to avoid irreversible loss and damage. With global warming continuing …
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) account for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and yet they are home to some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable populations, making action to mitigate global heating urgent. Renewables hold substantial promise for SIDS. Beyond carbon emissions reductions, they are clean, cost-effective sources …
This study assesses the potential for bioenergy production using various feedstocks such as sugarcane, oil palm, and municipal solid waste in six Caribbean small island developing states – Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.
This legal study is based on Legal Dimensions of Sea Level Rise: Pacific Perspectives which was published on June 29, 2021. The original version provided an assessment of key legal frameworks and policy questions that are relevant in the context of sea level rise in the Pacific region. This work, …
Ahead of the 2023 SDG Summit and of the 2024 Antigua and Barbuda fourth International Conference on SIDS, the 2023 Sustainable Development Report for SIDS presents for the first time a special edition of the SDG Index to assess where SIDS stand in terms of SDG progress. It also introduces …
Severe climate impacts are burdening countries worldwide, particularly the least developed countries and Small Island Developing States. Each disaster adds to their existing debt, hindering recovery and trapping them in an unsustainable cycle. This paper explores the need to break this cycle through existing debt relief options, covering the link …
Small island developing states (SIDS) are a set of islands and coastal states that share similar sustainable development challenges, as a result of their size, geography and vulnerability to climate change. Thirty-nine WHO member states in four regions – the African Region, the Region of the Americas, the South-East Asian …
As a critical component of the global economy, the ocean and its ecosystems provide important goods and services and support numerous activities essential for economic development, such as capture fisheries, maritime transport and ports, coastal tourism, coastal protection, and energy. These sectors collectively contribute to the ocean economy, estimated to …
This case study examines the experience of Dominica’s Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project (DVRP) — the country’s largest World Bank-associated climate resilience program — from project approval in May 2014 through its near-completion in 2022. This case study focuses on the project’s delivery challenges and solutions. It aims to provide lessons …
This report looks at how debt and climate change are threatening the future of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and suggests calls to action to help tackle these challenges. The oceans are scattered with small islands, dots on the world map that have too often been ignored. Yet they are …
Developing countries — especially least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) — face huge challenges in financing their current climate and nature needs. The borrowing space of LDCs and SIDS is already significantly constrained by debt, and the 70% of climate finance provided as loans to developing …
Pathways to Adaptation and Resilience in the Pacific takes forward analysis of the Asia Pacific Disaster Report 2021 and showcases how the subregion is being affected by various risk parameters, and where new hotspots of exposure and vulnerability to climate-induced, cascading multi-hazard scenarios are being created. Moving forward, ESCAP recommends …
This paper presents a detailed overview of the nature of loss and damage risks affecting low-income countries, marginalised groups and people living in poverty in the global South, and how they might be addressed. Based upon a structured review of existing literature, and a series of deliberative dialogues, key informant …
Small island developing States (SIDS) are among the most water-scarce countries in the world, with seven in ten SIDS facing risks of water shortage, including nine in ten low-lying SIDS (UNESCO, UNEP, 2016). Water being an element of life, its scarcity undermines fundamental priorities, such as the human right to …
This report examines the relationship between water governance and food insecurity in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It starts by profiling the socio-economic and biophysical diversity in the SIDS, traces water flows on the islands in terms of volume and quality and identifies the factors that exert pressure on water …
Achieving food security and improving nutrition are crucial to reach the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Not only they are essential to reach SDG2 – Zero Hunger, but they are also linked to many other SDGs including SDG3 – Good Health and Well-Being, SDG12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG14 …
This sequel to the Groundswell report includes projections and analysis of internal climate migration for three new regions: East Asia and the Pacific, North Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Qualitative analyses of climate-related mobility in countries of the Mashreq and in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are also …
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have long pursued unconventional economic development strategies, often with great success. Equally, because of their susceptibility to exogenous shocks, which can be disproportionately more destructive than in larger states, their progress remains fragile and can be set back suddenly and dramatically. It has taken some …
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have long pursued unconventional economic development strategies, often with great success. Equally, because of their pronounced susceptibility to exogenous shocks, their progress remains fragile and can be set back suddenly and dramatically, as the Covid-19 crisis and secondary impacts have shown. Successfully exploiting new economic …
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face a unique set of vulnerabilities which impede their ability to achieve sustainable development. Structural factors, including their size, remoteness, limited resource base, market size, exposure to climate risks and natural disasters impact socio economic outcomes and their ability to achieve the SDGs. The COVID19 …
