Asia bears much of the burden of climate change, with glacial floods in Nepal, wildfires in Indonesia and record typhoons.
By Luke Hunt, UCA News
Fueled by higher temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, this year’s super-charged El Niño has packed a punch that has encompassed the planet and devastated large swathes of Asia, from a glacial collapse in Nepal to wildfires in Indonesia, amid droughts and sudden storms at most points in-between.
Analysts also say typhoons are making landfall more often with increased strength, while persistent increased heat and drought are taking a toll on daily life, where extreme heavy rains have given rise to a new term, “rain bombs.”
“They’re having to come up with new adjectives for just how big these events are,” said Pablo Berrutti, founder and managing director of Altiorem, a non-profit that works to integrate sustainability into financial decision-making.
He said that every 1 °C increase in temperature results in a 7% rise in atmospheric water content, highlighting the importance of restricting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed under the Paris Agreement in 2010.
But that marker was broken in 2024 when a record for the hottest year was set, with the average global temperature reaching between 1.55°C and 1.6°C above the pre-industrial average. It’s a record that could be broken this year and next.
“That’s why the types of precipitation events are so much heavier now. And so, you’re seeing rain events, which would take days to dump that much water, do it in an hour. You’re seeing places that will get their yearly average rainfall in a single event,” Berrutti said.
“You’re seeing records broken all around the world as a result of that phenomenon. That’s with one and a bit degrees of warming that we’ve experienced so far. We’re well on the way to two degrees of warming by mid-century if we don’t do something to try and reduce emissions.”
Loss of life and high costs in damage for Asian nations
Authorities were warned, a point driven home by the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who urged that foreign aid to Nepal in the wake of the glacial tsunami — which left 1,410 people dead with 5,651 still missing — be reclassified as climate reparations.
But the devastation is across the region, and the costs are high.
The largest Indonesian wildfires and regional haze since 2015, blanketing much of Southeast Asia in thick, acrid smoke, have been blamed on prolonged dry conditions, and according to Indonesian digital news outlet Tempo English, the damage bill could reach between $2.3 billion and $7.3 billion.
In July, flash floods swept through northwestern China after intense rainfall killed at least 25 people. Another 44 people were killed amid torrential rain and landslides across southeastern Bangladesh.
Temperatures above 40°C have hit Indochina and Thailand, where drought and sudden storms have punished harvests, while the number of people admitted to hospitals in big cities — Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong — suffering heat stroke is measured in the thousands.
“You can slice it any way you like, but this is El Niño on steroids,” said Tejopala Rawls, executive director of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change.
“And we know we are not doing enough to be ready for what’s already coming our way.”
This July and August have matched the same period in 2024 as the hottest on record, while Berkeley Earth says there’s a 69% chance that 2026 will become the hottest year. The UK Met Office (formerly called the Meteorological Office) adds that 2027 was expected to replace 2024 as the hottest year.
Their forecasts are based on the current “unprecedented” El Niño lasting until February. On that basis, Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting says the rainy season in the country’s south could end 20 days earlier than normal.
And the root cause — global gas emissions warming the Earth’s atmosphere — remains.
Scaling up global climate finance
“Poorer countries have contributed the least to those emissions. But conversely, the poorest countries suffer the most as a result of a lot of these events that are occurring,” said Berrutti, who is also a strategic adviser on climate change and its impact on business.
“Countries like the Philippines have been smashed by typhoons multiple times over the last decades. The ability to recover when you then get another one that follows quite soon afterwards, it gets less and less over time.
“That ability to respond and your capacity to respond is continuously degraded until a point where you can’t respond effectively at all.”
Last year’s 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) backed the scaling up of global climate finance to at least $1.3 trillion annually by 2035, a figure known as the “Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3T,” which climate activists say is in line with the growing needs of developing countries.
But the 11 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have put forward a policy paper for US$300 billion a year to be mobilized by 2030 for developing countries, adding that this still “falls far short” of needs, noting that its own expected spending target within the same time frame was $422.16 billion.
“The way international climate funds are meant to work is to be able to provide those countries funding to be able to build more resilient infrastructure. But the funds are well below what has been promised,” Berrutti said. “This is a major challenge for developing countries.”
Funding was expected to be a major component of the annual U.N. climate change conference, COP31, to be held in Turkey Nov. 9-20. In an unprecedented arrangement, Australia will serve as president and hold exclusive authority over climate negotiations.
Phasing out fossil fuels
And therein lies another issue, said Rawls from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, which is advocating a ban on fossil fuels against an Australian government that, he says, is putting its lucrative coal and gas industry ahead of climate mitigation.
“There is an urgent need to make sure that the question of phasing out fossil fuels is an unavoidable topic at the COP summit in Turkey,” Rawls said.
“Australia’s climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has said publicly he’s not really putting that on the table as an item for discussion, more or less, words to that effect,” he said, adding that Australia’s emphasis is on rapid electrification and the phasing-in of clean energy.
“The problem is that even at a fairly rapid rate, which has been led by China, it is not going to displace the use of coal, oil and gas fast enough to avoid the really serious consequences,” Rawls said.
The Catholic Bishops of Africa, Asia and Latin America have also urged governments to adopt a global treaty in line with the Paris Agreement and halt fossil fuel expansion through their Manifesto of the Churches of the Global South for Our Common Home, released in March.
It calls for an end to new exploration and production of coal, oil, and gas, and the equitable phasing out of existing fossil fuel operations, while ensuring a global “just transition” that protects workers and communities.
The manifesto also warns that fossil fuels risk creating a wider crisis that “threatens human dignity and peace.”
Featured image: Rescuers prepare to lift the body of a victim from the roof of a destroyed home at Betrawati Bazaar in Nepal’s Rasuwa district Aug. 31, 2026, following deadly flash floods and mudslides Aug. 26. Rescue teams with search dogs continued to look through mud, rocks and debris on the Nepal-China border for thousands of people missing a week after the catastrophic flash floods that tore through Himalayan communities and left more than 1,000 dead. (OSV News/Reuters)
