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Photo credit: Gorakhpur Environment Action Group Blog

The ESCAP Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report 2024 flagged the region’s regression on SDG 13, climate action. To reverse this trend, it is imperative that both mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand…

Photo credit: Pexels/Guduru Ajay bhargav Blog

Between 1970 and 2022, disaster events in Asia and the Pacific caused 2.04 million deaths and $2.71 trillion in economic damages. ESCAP estimates that among these totals, tsunamis rank as the third…

Photo credit: Freepik/Rawpixel.com Blog

Drought is a slow-onset disaster that causes significant damage to the environment.  Unlike most other natural hazards, the effects of drought often accumulate slowly over an extended period…

UNOCHA/Matteo Minasi Blog

Multiple earthquakes, the strongest being of 7.7 magnitude, struck southern Türkiye and northern Syria on 6 February 2023. The earthquake was extremely powerful, and more deadly because it…

Photo credit: Shutterstock/wk1003mike Op-ed

Asia and the Pacific is the most digitally divided region of the world, and South-East Asia is the most divided subregion. The Covid-19 pandemic detonated a “digital big bang” that spurred people,…

Photo credit: Lim Yong Tick / EyeEm Op-ed

The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future.

Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP…

Photo credit: iStock/PeopleImages Op-ed

As the leaders of Asia and the Pacific prepare to head to Glasgow for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), they can be sure that our region will be in the…

Photo credit: William Potter/shutterstock.com Blog

The Covid-19 crisis has upended lives across the globe, wreaking havoc on economies and societies.

Looking beyond the pandemic, climate change poses the single most important threat to the…

Photo credits: Unsplash/Markus Spiske/Tingey Injury Law Firm Blog

The adoption of the Paris Agreement (“PA”) in December 2015 created the opportunity to use legal instruments for climate action. To reach the strategic objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C,…

Photo credit: Unsplash/Li-Lin Blog

Not far from downtown Bangkok is the district with the largest number of COVID-19 infections in the latest wave of the pandemic. In April, slum dwellers accounted for two thirds of all infections,…