Asia was the world’s most disaster-hit region from climate and weather hazards in 2023, the United Nations said Tuesday, with floods and storms the chief cause of casualties and economic losses. Global temperatures hit record highs last year, and the UN’s weather and climate agency said Asia was warming at a particularly rapid pace. The World Meteorological Organisation said the impact of heatwaves in Asia was becoming more severe, with melting glaciers threatening the region’s future water security. As for precipitation, it was below normal in the Himalayas and in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The High-Mountain Asia region, centred on the Tibetan Plateau, contains the largest volume of ice outside of the Polar Regions. The WMO said Asia was warming faster than the global average, with temperatures last year nearly two degrees Celsius above the 1961 to 1990 average. “The report’s conclusions are sobering,” WMO chief Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “Many countries in the region experienced their hottest year on record in 2023, along with a barrage of extreme conditions, from droughts and heatwaves to floods and storms.

Climate change exacerbated the frequency and severity of such events, profoundly impacting societies, economies, and, most importantly, human lives and the environment that we live in.” The State of the Climate in Asia 2023 report highlighted the accelerating rate of key climate change indicators such as surface temperature, glacier retreat and sea level rise, saying they would have serious repercussions for societies, economies and ecosystems in the region. “Asia remained the world’s most disaster-hit region from weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023,” the WMO said. The annual mean near-surface temperature over Asia in 2023 was the second highest on record, at 0.91 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, and 1.87 C above the 1961-1990 average. Over the last several decades, most of these glaciers have been retreating, and at an accelerating rate, the WMO said, with 20 out of 22 monitored glaciers in the region showing continued mass loss last year.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan