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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