Climate change in Asia

By 2080, around 1 billion people in the cities of South and Southeast Asia are expected to experience around a month of extreme heat every year.

[3]: 1465  There are many coral reefs in the region, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change,[3]: 1459  to the point practically all of them will be lost if the warming exceeds 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).

[3]: 1459  These changes to water cycle also affect vector-borne disease distribution, with malaria and dengue fever expected to become more prominent in the tropical and subtropical regions.

[3]: 1468  While the United States remains the world's largest oil consumer, by 2050 it is projected to move to third place, behind China and India.

[3]: 1470  While nearly half of the world's new renewable energy capacity is built in Asia,[3]: 1470  this is not yet sufficient in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

[3]: 1534  Important examples include the growing implementation of climate-smart agriculture in certain countries or the "sponge city" planning principles in China.

[3]: 1534  While some countries have drawn up extensive frameworks such as the Bangladesh Delta Plan or Japan's Climate Adaptation Act,[3]: 1508  others still rely on localized actions that are not effectively scaled up.

However, China has been the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the 21st century, while India is the 3rd-largest, Russia is 4th, while Japan and South Korea rank 5th and 7th.

[3]: 1464  This has led to permafrost thaw, which acts as a climate change feedback and also places large quantities of infrastructure at risk of collapse.

[3]: 1468  The demand for air conditioning would continue to increase and managing it would become more challenging for the energy infrastructures, which are often already prone to blackouts in many countries on the continent.

[3]: 1465  At the same time, heavy precipitation events (defined as 400 mm or more in a day) had increased in South, Southeast and East Asia during the 21st century.

Monsoon regions would experience more heavy and even intense precipitation (defined as 50mm or more in an hour), making floods substantially more frequent.

[13] While there has been no significant change in tropical cyclone (TC) frequency in Asia since the 1950s,[3]: 1465  category 4-5 TCs are likely to become more frequent under high warming and generate more rainfall.

[3]: 1459  Around 2050, populations living in the Amu Darya, Ganges and Indus may be faced with severe water scarcity due to both climate and socioeconomic reasons.

[3]: 1486  Although the increases in monsoon strength may offset these losses, agriculture in the region would still become more reliant on it than ever before, while hydropower generation would become less predictable and reliable.

[3] Future sea level rise on Japan's Honshu Island would be up to 25 cm faster than the global average under RCP8.5, the intense climate change scenario.

Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam alone account for 70% of people exposed to sea level rise during the 21st century.

Modeling results predict that Asia will suffer direct economic damages of US$167.6 billion at 0.47 meters of sea level rise.

[3] Nations like Bangladesh, Vietnam and China with extensive rice production on the coast are already seeing adverse impacts from saltwater intrusion.

By 2030, major Indian cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Cuttack and Kochi are expected to end up with much of their territory below the tide level.

Nine of these are the so-called sinking cities, where subsidence (typically caused by unsustainable groundwater extraction in the past) would compound sea level rise.

[34] These are Bangkok, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Kolkata, Nagoya, Tianjin, Xiamen and Zhanjiang.

[3] By 2050, Guangzhou would see 0.2 meters of sea level rise and estimated annual economic losses of US$254 million – the highest in the world.

[3]: 1472  At the same time, wildfires have also become more severe in Siberia, although this is partly connected to increased pressure from mineral exploration and illegal logging.

[3]: 1474  Greater warming has also generally made it easier for trees to move into the previously unsuitable mountain areas, and this trend is expected to continue in the future.

[3]: 1491  Major agricultural pests such as Colorado potato beetle and Ixodes ricinus have been able to expand their range,[3]: 1473  and other expansions, such as those of locusts and the golden apple snail are expected in the future.

[3]: 1508  Under the high-emission scenario, 40 million people in South Asia (nearly 2% of the population) may be driven to internal migration by 2050 due to climate change.

[42] India is estimated to have the world's highest social cost of carbon - meaning that it experiences the greatest impact from greenhouse gas emissions.

[48] In China, the so-called sponge cities are designed to increase the area of green spaces and permeable pavings to help deal with flash floods from precipitation extremes.

[3]: 1497  Natural environment can be helped to adapt to climate change by increasing the extent of protected areas and providing habitat corridors to facilitate the dispersal of vulnerable species.

The 2022 South Asian floods , including in Pakistan (pictured) are an example of a climate change impact. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
Climate change is expected to exacerbate heat stress over at the North China Plain , which is particularly vulnerable as widespread irrigation results in very moist air. There is a risk that agricultural labourers will be physically unable to work outdoors on hot summer days at the end of the century, particularly under the scenario of greatest emissions and warming. [ 6 ]
Thick haze and smoke along the Ganges River in northern India.
By 1975, land temperatures across Asia have already increased since the preindustrial period. Under the low-emission scenario, they will remain similar to present, but will increase substantially with greater emissions [ 8 ]
Greater warming increases the amount of moisture in the atmosphere over Asia, which directly leads to extreme precipitation. Probability of 20-year, 50-year and 100-year extremes consistently increases with warming across Asia - up to a 7-fold average increase for 100-year extremes under 3 °C (5.4 °F) of warming. [ 13 ]
Observed glacier mass loss in the Hindu Kush Himalayas region since the 20th century. [ 19 ]
Matsukawaura Lagoon , located in Fukushima Prefecture of Honshu Island
2010 estimates of population exposure to sea level rise in Bangladesh
The distribution of the Korean fir in its core habitat, Mount Hallasan , will decline under the 2 °C (3.6 °F) local warming relative to the present. [ 37 ]
Under the highest-emission scenario, many Asian countries would see substantial reductions in seafood available from their exclusive economic zones by 2050 [ 38 ]
Economic impacts of climate change under high emissions (orange) are estimated to be greater compared to low emissions (blue) after around 2050 (dashed lines) at 1% statistical significance in Middle East, South, Southeast and East Asia, no statistical difference found for Central Asia/Russia region [ 41 ]
Dau Tieng Solar Power Project , a solar power farm in Tân Châu , Vietnam .
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed at the launch of the Climate Vulnerability Monitor in 2009.