Asia saw hottest year on record in 2020

According to the UN’s State of the Climate in Asia report, the mean temperature rose 1.39°C above the 1981-2010 average

GENEVA : Asia suffered its hottest year on record in 2020, the United Nations said Tuesday ahead of the COP26 summit, with extreme weather taking a heavy toll on the continent’s development.

In its annual State of the Climate in Asia report, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said every part of the region had been affected.

“Extreme weather and climate change impacts across Asia in 2020 caused the loss of life of thousands of people, displaced millions of others and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, while wreaking a heavy toll on infrastructure and ecosystems,” the WMO said. “Sustainable development is threatened, with food and water insecurity, health risks and environmental degradation on the rise.”

The report comes days before COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow from Sunday. Asia’s warmest year on record saw the mean temperature 1.39°C above the 1981-2010 average. The 38.0°C registered at Verkhoyansk in Russia is provisionally the highest known temperature anywhere north of the Arctic Circle.

Biden pledges climate aid at Asean summit

US President Joe Biden was set to provide Southeast Asia with more than $100 million in funding to fight the pandemic and tackle the climate crisis as his administration seeks to bolster ties with a region seeking to balance its growing economic reliance on China.

Biden was set to attend a virtual meeting with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Tuesday. In recent months, his administration has sought to restore relationships in the region after predecessor Donald Trump skipped Asean summits in each of the last three years of his presidency.

At the meeting, Biden will unveil a plan to provide $40 million to strengthen health system capacity and speed up research as part of the battle against Covid-19 in a region that has just begun to recover from a wave of deadly cases.

He’ll also pledge $20.5 million for tackling the climate crisis through a smart cities business innovation fund and the deployment of clean transport technologies, a statement said.

‘No new coal plants in SL’ Sri Lanka will stop commissioning new coal-fired power plants as part of a push to ditch the dirty fossil fuel, the government said on Tuesday, ahead of the COP26 global summit on climate change.

Coal and hydroelectricity contribute about 44% each to Sri Lanka’s power supply. Diesel accounts for 9%, the rest coming from wind and solar.