UNB, Dhaka :
Asian countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines should invest more in governments’ capacity to protect their citizens given the region’s vulnerability to climate change.
A year after super-typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, a new report issued on Thursday by the international humanitarian and development agency Oxfam, ‘Can’t Afford to Wait: Briefing Note’, reveals that Asian governments are not prioritising disaster risk reduction initiatives, despite projections that the region will suffer more from climate change in the future.
Asia is the most disaster-prone region of the world, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). In 2013, some 78 percent of people killed by disasters lived in Asia even though only 60 percent of global disasters occurred here.
Over the past 20 years, Asia has borne almost half the estimated global economic cost of all disasters, amounting to almost $53 billion annually. Direct losses from disasters in the region significantly outpaced growth in GDP. Harvest losses alone related to flooding in Southeast Asia have an estimated annual value of $1 billion.
If no action is taken, four countries-Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam-could suffer a loss equivalent to 6.7 percent of GDP annually by the year 2100, more than
double the global average loss, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). According to Climate Change Vulnerability Index 2015, Bangladesh is at most risk in terms of climate change vulnerability. Bangladesh faces total losses of about 3-4 percent of GDP due to climate change.
Projections see negative trends as crop production is potentially set to decline for at least one crop in each region of the country. Overall, agricultural GDP in Bangladesh is projected to be 3.1 percent lower each year as a result of climate change, affecting 65 percent of the country’s labour force and hampering agriculture production which contributes to 20 percent of GDP.
Asian countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines should invest more in governments’ capacity to protect their citizens given the region’s vulnerability to climate change.
A year after super-typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, a new report issued on Thursday by the international humanitarian and development agency Oxfam, ‘Can’t Afford to Wait: Briefing Note’, reveals that Asian governments are not prioritising disaster risk reduction initiatives, despite projections that the region will suffer more from climate change in the future.
Asia is the most disaster-prone region of the world, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). In 2013, some 78 percent of people killed by disasters lived in Asia even though only 60 percent of global disasters occurred here.
Over the past 20 years, Asia has borne almost half the estimated global economic cost of all disasters, amounting to almost $53 billion annually. Direct losses from disasters in the region significantly outpaced growth in GDP. Harvest losses alone related to flooding in Southeast Asia have an estimated annual value of $1 billion.
If no action is taken, four countries-Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam-could suffer a loss equivalent to 6.7 percent of GDP annually by the year 2100, more than
double the global average loss, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). According to Climate Change Vulnerability Index 2015, Bangladesh is at most risk in terms of climate change vulnerability. Bangladesh faces total losses of about 3-4 percent of GDP due to climate change.
Projections see negative trends as crop production is potentially set to decline for at least one crop in each region of the country. Overall, agricultural GDP in Bangladesh is projected to be 3.1 percent lower each year as a result of climate change, affecting 65 percent of the country’s labour force and hampering agriculture production which contributes to 20 percent of GDP.
