Year 2020 hottest on record in Asia: UN climate report
Image Credits: Climate Change
Oct 26, 2021: Ahead of the COP26 summit on Tuesday, the United Nations said Asia faced its hottest year on record in 2020, with severe weather severely hampering the continent’s growth.
In its annual “Climate Condition in Asia” report, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization said every part of the region was affected. According to the WMO, “Extreme weather and the effects of climate change across Asia in 2020 have claimed thousands of lives, displaced millions and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, while infrastructure and ecosystems have been severely damaged.”
Sustainable development in the continent is threatened by growing food and water insecurity, health risks and environmental degradation.
The report comes just days before the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26, to be held in Glasgow from Sunday to November 12. The report also reveals the total annual losses from climate hazards.
China lost $238 billion, followed by India at $87 billion, Japan at 83 billion and South Korea at $24 billion.
Rising temperatures and humidity are predicting an effective loss of outdoor work hours across the continent, with potential costs of billions of dollars. “Weather and climate hazards, especially floods, storms, and droughts, have had significant effects in many countries in the region,” said Petri Talas, head of the WMO. “Collectively, these effects have a significant impact on long-term sustainable development.”
Many of Asia’s climate and climate displacement is long, with people unable to return home or integrate locally, the report said. In 2020, floods and storms affected about 50 million people in Asia, resulting in more than 5,000 deaths.
This is lower than the annual average of the last two decades (158 million people were affected and approximately 15,500 deaths) “and speaks volumes about the success of early warning systems in many Asian countries”, with seven out of 10 people affected.
The average temperature in Asia’s warmest year on record was 1.39 degrees Celsius higher than the average of 1981-2010. The highest known temperature anywhere in the north of the Arctic Circle was recorded at 38 C in Russia’s Verkhoyansk.
In 2020, the average sea level reached record highs in the Indian, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Sea levels and sea temperatures in Asia and its environs are rising above the global average. They are warming three times the average in the Arabian Sea and parts of the Arctic Ocean. The 2020 Arctic sea ice minimum (after the summer thaw) was the second lowest on the satellite record since 1979.
The Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas have about 100,000 square kilometers of glaciers – the largest amount of ice outside the polar regions and the source of Asia’s 10 largest rivers. “Glacier retreat is accelerating and it is estimated that by 2050, glaciers will shrink by 20% to 40%, affecting the lives and livelihoods of approximately 750 million people in the region,” the report said.
“It has major implications for global seas, regional water cycles and local hazards such as landslides and avalanches.” A quarter of Asia’s mangroves are in Bangladesh. However, from 1992 to 2019, the number of mangroves in the country affected by tropical storms decreased by 19%, the report said.
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