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A Region at Risk: The Human Dimensions of Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific

Published by: ADB

The Asia and Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Unabated warming could significantly undo previous achievements of economic development and improvements of living standards. At the same time, the region has both the economic capacity and weight of influence to change the present fossil-fuel based development pathway and curb global emissions. This report sheds light on the regional implications of the latest projections of changes in climate conditions over Asia and the Pacific. The assessment concludes that, even under the Paris consensus scenario in which global warming is limited to 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels, some of the land area, ecosystems, and socioeconomic sectors will be significantly affected by climate change impacts, to which policy makers and the investment community need to adapt to. However, under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, which will cause a global mean temperature rise of over 4°C by the end of this century, the possibilities for adaptation are drastically reduced. Among others, climate change impacts such as the deterioration of the Asian “water towers”, prolonged heat waves, coastal sea-level rise and changes in rainfall patterns could disrupt ecosystem services and lead to severe effects on livelihoods which in turn would affect human health, migration dynamics and the potential for conflicts. This assessment also underlines that, for many areas vital to the region’s economy, research on the effects of climate change is still lacking.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Document type Reports, journal articles, and research papers (including theses and dissertations)
Language of document
  • English
Topics
  • Agriculture
  • Climate change
  • Floods
  • Marine and coastal areas
  • Migration
Geographic area (spatial range)
  • Cambodia
  • Lao People's Democratic Republic
  • Myanmar
  • Thailand
  • Viet Nam
Copyright Yes
Access and use constraints

This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/.

Version / Edition 2017
License CC-BY-3.0-IGO
Contact

Asian Development Bank 6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines Tel +63 2 632 4444; Fax +63 2 636 2444 www.adb.org

Author (corporate) Asian Development Bank
ISBN number 978-92-9257-852-7
Publication place Manila, Philippines
Publisher Asian Development Bank
Publication date 2017
Pagination 131
Keywords temperature change,sea level rise,heat extremes,tropical cyclones,flooding risk
Date uploaded April 3, 2018, 18:20 (UTC)
Date modified April 17, 2018, 10:51 (UTC)