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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…

Photo credit: WMO/Helena Mettavainio Blog

On this World Meteorological Day, WMO and ESCAP unpack the 2023 theme: Weather, Climate and Water across Generations – through a series of three opinion pieces focused on the Asia-Pacific region,…

Photo Credit: UNICEF Pacific Blog

Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/gdagys Blog

As we inch closer to the 1.5°C target and beyond in this century, the sixth generation of CIMP6 climate models (known as Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6) and the Shared Socio-economic…

UNICEF/Malani Wolfgramm. Blog

On January 14, 2022, the South Pacific experienced the incredible force of the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai. The plume reached 30 kilometers into the stratosphere, and the eruption was…

Photo credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider Blog

A person in the Asia-Pacific region is four times more at risk of natural hazards than a person in Africa and sixteen times more than someone in North America or Europe. The “riskscape” of the region…

Photo credit: NASA image by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data from University of Maryland’s Global Land Cover Facility Blog

Recent research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that the world is likely to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming much earlier than previously anticipated. The United in…

shutterstock / arrowsmith2 Blog

In many places around the world, schools are left with deserted classrooms, quiet hallways and empty playgrounds. COVID-19 has forced students and teachers to rapidly adapt to extended school…

Photo credit: Yang Shuo on Unsplash Blog

In the first quarter of 2020, as news of lockdown measures in other parts of Asia and the Pacific rolled in, Kazakhstan was holding its breath and developing appropriate urgent measures in…

Shutterstock / Nuad Contributor Blog

Could you imagine a world where online chat platforms become the primary source of information for truckers on how to get across borders? This blog follows the Subregional SDG Forum hosted in…

Shutterstock / Curioso.Photography Blog

In recent years, countries in North and Central Asia have put in place measures to ensure the rights of migrant workers, recognizing their significant contribution to both home and recipient…

UN Photo Op-ed

The past five years have been the hottest on record in Asia and the Pacific. Unprecedented heatwaves have swept across our region, cascading into slow onset disasters such as drought. Yet heat is…

Secure Cross Border Transport Model Blog

International road transport requires agreements among countries on traffic rights to enable movement of vehicles of one country into another. The signing of a transport agreement that allows…

Sustainable Development Goals Blog

Three years into the implementation period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is Asia Pacific on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? According to ESCAP’s recent Asia…