Addressing Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific: Impacts on Food, Fuel, and People

Abstract

This brochure summarizes the various studies sponsored by ADB relating to climate change, which includes its impacts on food security, energy security, and migration. Despite rapid growth over the last decade, over 30% of the people of Asia and the Pacific still live on less than $2 per day. To reduce and eventually eliminate this poverty, economic development must continue and accelerate. However, climate change presents major new challenges to the region’s development. It demands a shift to a much less carbon-intensive pattern of economic growth and the incorporation of adaptation measures to help cope with the adverse effects of climate change, including melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and more frequent extreme weather events While climate change adds new dimensions to all aspects of economic development plans and programs, it will most fundamentally affect the agriculture and energy sectors as well as human settlement. In recognition of these three key areas—food, fuel, and people—the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has supported analyses on each of these key climate change issues. Addressing the new challenges imposed by climate change will require collective action by governments, communities, civil society, international organizations, and the private sector. Developing countries will need to build more resilient agriculture sectors and protect food security, alter the way that energy is both generated and used, and understand and respond to the threat of climate-induced migration.