The United Nations says Asia has been face record heat in 2020 And the extreme weather has severely damaged the continent’s development. In its annual report on “Climate Conditions in Asia,” the UN’s meteorological agency said every part of the region was affected.
The WMO said that in 2020, the effects of hot weather and climate change across Asia have claimed thousands of lives, displaced millions and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, while severely damaging infrastructure and ecosystems.
Food and water insecurity, health risks and increasing environmental degradation threaten sustainable development, the report said.The report comes ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26, to be held in Glasgow on November 12. The report also shows 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, the report said. The average annual loss of GDP is expected to be 7.9%, 5.9% for Cambodia and 5.8% for Laos. Rising temperatures and humidity are predicting a significant loss of outdoor work hours across the continent, potentially costing billions of dollars. As floods, hurricanes, and droughts have had significant effects in many countries in the region.
Together, these effects have a significant impact on long-term sustainable development, the report said. That There have been many weather and climate-related displacements in Asia where people have not been able to return home. Floods and storms in 2020 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, which affected 158 million people and resulted in about 15,500 deaths.
Average sea level in 2020 reached record highs in the Indian Ocean, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Tibet and the Himalayas have about 100,000 square kilometers of glaciers, the largest amount of ice outside the polar region and the source of Asia’s 10 largest rivers. Are.
The report said that glaciers are declining rapidly and it is estimated that by 2050 the volume of glaciers will be reduced by 20% to 40%, affecting the lives and livelihoods of about 750 million people in the region. A quarter of Asia’s mangroves are in Bangladesh, but the report said that from 1992 to 2019, the number of mangroves in the country affected by storms decreased by 19%.
