WMO: Asia has become most impacted region by climate change

CGTN Europe

Asia has become the most impacted region by climate change, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization. Dr. Alexander Fisher, Director of Climate Ambition at the ClimateWorks Foundation, spoke to CGTN about the flooding situation in China’s southern province of Guangdong and what, if anything, we can do to help tackle climate change.

Transcript

00:00Well, Asia suffered the most disasters caused by the climate last year, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

00:07It says that the continent is warming faster than the global average, with temperatures in 2023 nearly 2 degrees Celsius,

00:14above the average experienced between 1961 and 1990.

00:19The report by the United Nations Weather Agency highlights the accelerating rate of key climate change indicators in Asia,

00:27including surface temperature, glacier retreat and rising sea levels.

00:31It also shows that 20 out of 22 glaciers that it's monitoring in the mountainous regions of Asia experienced continued loss of mass.

00:41And while a total of 79 water-related disasters were reported in Asia last year, floods were the leading cause of death.

00:49Well, Alexander Fischer is Program Director of Climate Ambition at the Climate Works Foundation.

00:55Welcome to the program. Good to see you, Alexander.

00:57So, this report picked out Asia as the worst affected region by climate change.

01:02Why has it been so badly affected?

01:06Thank you, Ryan, for having me.

01:08It's a very important question. Obviously, the answer is still not 100% sure.

01:13But we know that events in climate are all connected throughout the world.

01:19That means when we have seen 1.5 degrees temperature increase last year.

01:24So, we sort of broke through this 1.5 degree threshold.

01:28And the first tipping points around the globe started to tip.

01:34So, in this range. So, the Greenland ice shield is melting.

01:38Arctic summer sea ice is melting.

01:40Alpine glaciers are melting.

01:41Coral reefs are bleaching and dying.

01:44And West and Arctic ice sheet is melting.

01:47And the jet stream started to be affected.

01:49This goes down to the regions around the equator.

01:53And Asia has the largest part of their countries and their population around that area.

02:00And that's caused the heavy effect by regions in Europe, northern Russia, northern America or Argentina.

02:08Which are far away from the equator don't feel that effect so heavily.

02:13So, clearly lots of different factors at play.

02:15I want to look at China where we've been reporting on these devastating floods in Guangdong.

02:19They were caused by heavier and earlier rain.

02:23Why has the weather been so abnormal?

02:27It's interesting.

02:28So, in a study which the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change has done the last months.

02:35We figured out that the effects in the Amazon region.

02:40If the Amazon forest goes down, the snowfall in the Himalaya is affected.

02:46There's less snowfall in the Himalaya if the Amazon rainforest goes down.

02:54So, nobody would have expected that, that this connection is made.

02:57That means Asia is affected from what happened in the whole world, if you want to call it that way.

03:03So, terrible flooding in China and flooding overall one of the biggest problems in Asia.

03:09It caused the most climate related deaths.

03:11What, if anything, can that continent do to try and mitigate that?

03:17Climate concerns us all.

03:19We're still putting around about 40 billion tons of CO2 per year into the atmosphere.

03:2550% comes from Asia.

03:27I think we have to get serious to reduce that.

03:31And then starting to get out of the atmosphere part of the CO2, which is already in there.

03:37We are around 400 particles per million, which is much, much higher than anything seen in 150,000 years of measurement.

03:46To get this down, there has to be quite global and coordinated measures where we have to work all together.

03:54There's no way we can do this in only one region, one country.

03:59And I think most important is that we really start working together on this.

04:04We're now beginning to see campaigners taking their governments to court over how they've been affected by climate change.

04:10We recently had that partially successful case in Switzerland.

04:13Unsuccessful case brought by Portugal, amongst others.

04:16We now have the first case of its kind in Asia happening in South Korea.

04:20Can actions like these end up having an effect?

04:24They're having an effect, but this is all incremental.

04:27This is all not the extent what Asia needs.

04:31At the end of the day, we also need in Germany what the whole world needs.

04:35It has to be together and not against each other.

04:38These legal cases or court cases, the South Korean youth and the Switzerland senior citizens may tip a little bit here and there.

04:49But it will by far not be enough to make changes which are needed to reduce the rainfall and the flooding which you have seen in your country.

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