When Super Typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda) struck the Philippines on 7 November 2013, Rowel Balais and his family hunkered down in their home in the town of Palo, Leyte province. Along with Tacloban city, it was one of the hardest hit areas by the deadly typhoon. Haiyan affected 16 million people and killed over 7,000.
Rangi Sudrajat dreamed of being a humanitarian worker since she was a young girl. She decided to pursue a path of helping the less fortunate, after watching the news about refugees affected by the Kosovo war.
Over the period 2015-2020, Southeast Asia faced its most severe droughts in decades, with devastating impacts. No country in our region has been spared. If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, our news headlines would have been dominated by drought impacts and recovery.
Super Typhoon Goni slammed the northeastern coast of the Philippines on the first day of November. The country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reports that as of 4 November, the typhoon had caused at least 20 deaths and affected more than two million people in 12 regions.
ASEAN Member States have proactively taken measures to address the issue of climate change at the national and regionals levels.
Climate change is inevitable; humanity and its ecosystems have already been impacted by warming of 1°C since pre-industrial times and humanity is on the path towards global warming of 1.5°C, with the expected emergence of unprecedented climatic conditions over the next decade.
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen talks about the need for urgent action, as the world and the region face multiple environmental threats.
What does science say about climate change? The global community generally
agrees on this definition of climate change by the United Nations: “a change
of climate attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the
composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural
climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”
