By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: A new United Nations report released on Wednesday paints a stark picture of escalating heat risks across Asia and the Pacific, identifying Karachi and eight other densely populated megacities as particularly susceptible to extreme temperatures that could intensify in the coming decades, amplifying threats to public health, equity and infrastructure.
The report, titled “Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2025: Rising Heat, Rising Risk,” from the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, or Escap, underscores how urban areas are already grappling with heightened dangers from extreme heat, driven by the urban heat island effect. In these environments, densely built surfaces trap heat, elevating city temperatures by 2 to 7 degrees Celsius above surrounding rural areas, on top of broader global warming trends.
This vulnerability is compounded by rapid, often unplanned urbanisation and a lack of green spaces, the report states. Cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Delhi, Karachi, Dhaka, Manila, Jakarta and Phnom Penh stand out as high-risk zones, where children, the elderly and outdoor workers bear the brunt of the strain on cooling, water supplies and health care. Higher-income neighborhoods, often situated in cooler, greener areas, highlight deepening inequities and issues of environmental justice.
“Asia and the Pacific were impacted by various natural hazards and climate-induced extreme events in 2024 and 2025, and the fastest-growing climate-related hazards are driven by extreme heat,” the report reads, emphasising that rising temperatures are “impacting all, everywhere,” with expanding and intensifying risks to food systems, public health, urban living, rural livelihoods, infrastructure and the ecosystem.
The document warns of a “silent but growing health emergency” as the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events surge. “Under all future climate scenarios, heat stress is projected to rise sharply across Asia and the Pacific, with mortality potentially doubling by 2050,” it adds. The urban poor, especially in crowded cities amplified by the urban heat island effect, face the highest exposure.
Looking ahead, the report projects that during the period from 2041 to 2060, countries including Mongolia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkmenistan will rank among the most arid, as elevated temperatures accelerate evaporation, parching soils and vegetation and triggering droughts and water shortages.
Beyond heat, the report delves into the cascading consequences of global warming, including the melting of glaciers, which it describes as one of the most disastrous outcomes. This process “exacerbates changes in tele-connected systems of oceans and atmosphere across distant regions — disrupting monsoon patterns, snow and melt dynamics, and permafrost thaw, which all lead to the increased frequency, intensity and expansion of floods, landslides, droughts, land degradation and sand and dust storms,” the report reads.
Globally, glaciers have lost about 5 percent of their volume this century, according to Escap. In the Asia-Pacific region, 17 of 58 countries host glaciers that could form lakes prone to bursting, causing sudden glacial lake outburst floods, or Glofs. “The glaciers with the highest Glof risks are in High Mountain Asia, where a total of 9.3 million people are exposed to 2,211 glacial lakes,” the report states. “By 2060, countries like Iran, Mongolia, Myanmar, Turkiye and Uzbekistan could lose over 70pc of their glacier mass … posing Glof risks.”
Economic projections in the report are equally sobering. By 2100, regional disaster losses could climb from $418 billion under current scenarios to $498 billion in a worst-case climate outlook. The frequency of days exceeding critical heat thresholds is expected to spike, with south and southwest Asia, parts of southeast Asia, and northern and eastern Australia facing trends toward chronic heat exposure.
Over the past five decades, the region has endured more frequent and severe climate-related extreme events, often overlapping into multi-hazard crises with widespread, cascading impacts. Intensifying risks from earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods and cyclonic storms now threaten much of the area’s critical infrastructure.
While acknowledging the region’s experience in managing such cascading disasters, the report stresses that extreme heat requires a heightened response. “Every country needs to act now, with the implementation of regional cooperation initiatives turbocharged to meet the scale of this evolving disaster risk landscape,” it reads.
The document advocates for strategic, long-term measures rooted in science, innovation and collaboration, urging that heat be prioritised in multi-hazard planning. It calls for heat-ready early warning systems featuring interoperable alerts, standardised metrics and reliable communication to reach the most vulnerable. Currently, only 54 percent of global meteorological services issue warnings for extreme temperatures, the report notes. Expanding heat-health warning systems in just 57 countries could save approximately 100,000 lives annually.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
