In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

My colleagues in The Asia Foundation’s Environment Program recently returned from Bangkok, where the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum they were scheduled to attend was canceled due to the worst flooding in Thailand in 60 years. The disaster resulted in over 600 deaths, approximately 10 million lives affected, $21 billion in lost revenues from major industries, and an estimated $24 billion dollars in damage to property…

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For the last several days, the water level in Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River has been rising in virtual synch with the escalating worry that grips a city bisected by this great river and whose neighborhoods are crisscrossed by dozens of canals, or klongs.

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s controversial off-the-cuff remarks made earlier this month on the influence of conservative Islamic groups on the Bangladesh polity, led the Indian government to announce immediately – quite contrary to diplomatic practice – his much-awaited visit to Dhaka on September 6-7.

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Asia has fewer fresh water resources than any other continent in the world. The global average of fresh water per capita annually is 6,280 cubic meters. The only countries rich in water resources in all of Asia are Malaysia, Laos, Bhutan, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan, leaving the rest of Asia water-stressed.

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Sri Lanka is no stranger to water-related disaster; the 2004 tsunami was only one such threat to livelihoods in the vulnerable island nation. In January and February 2011, Sri Lanka’s Northern, Eastern, and Central provinces were deluged by severe floods. Though flooding during the country’s bi-annual monsoon is a recurrent problem, the rains in the hardest-hit district of Batticaloa…

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Over 40 years ago, the effort to raise political and public awareness about mounting environmental issues in America took hold, and in 1970, the first Earth Day was held. Inspired by the anti-Vietnam War movement seizing the United States at that time, millions of Americans from coast-to-coast marched in the streets…

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As news spread about the recent earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, there was immediate concern about the effects to the people living on small islands and atolls belonging to more than 22 Pacific Island Nations and scattered across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean.

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On March 26, Bangladesh celebrated its 40th year as an independent nation. That same weekend, over 350 participants from over 60 countries gathered in Bangladesh for the 5th “International Conference on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change.”

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Bangladeshi communities – living in a nation recently dubbed “climate change ground zero” – have been quietly innovating and adapting to climate change in their backyards for some time. In coastal areas, floating gardens supply families with fresh vegetables in once dry, but now water logged areas.

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In the aftermath of the global food price crisis of 2007-08, world food prices have been steadily rising, reaching an all-time high in January since the United Nations began recording in 1990. Coupled with cries from the Arab world for “bread and freedom!” food security has at last penetrated mainstream debate and high-level policy making. While food security has until recently been classified as a “non-traditional security” topic, current discussions have been prominent, loud, and often vehement enough to take on the visibility and attention…

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