BENGALURU, India -- Climate change is battering Asia’s water and power systems and putting millions in harm’s way, forcing countries to pour billions into shoring up basic services, according to two recent reports.Water-related disasters are rising across the region even as spending to protect communities falls short.Asian nations will need $4 trillion for water and sanitation between 2025 and 2040 — about $250 billion a year, the Asian Development Bank said in a report released Monday.Governments are under growing pressure to protect power systems people rely on every day.
By 2050, extreme weather could leave listed power companies in Asia-Pacific with about $8.4 billion a year in damage and lost revenue, a third higher than now, according to recent research by the Hong Kong-based non-profit Asia Investor Group on Climate Change and the New York-based MSCI Institute, a sustainability think tank.Those risks have been playing out this year across Asia as it was pummeled by late-arriving storms, relentless rains and severe floods.In central Vietnam’s Quy Nhon, power lines snapped when Typhoon Kalmaegi blasted the coastal city with heavy rain and strong winds.Floods from the relentless downpours left streets submerged under chest-high water days later, turning entire neighborhoods into islands.
The day after the storm made landfall, Hai Duong, 29, rushed to a mall that still had power to charge her phone.“I can’t go back because my home is underwater.I just want to see if my relatives are safe,” she said.The ADB report says 2.7 billion people, about 60% of the Asia-Pacific population, have access to water for most of their basic needs but more than 4 billion still remain exposed to unsafe water, degraded ecosystems and escalating climate hazards.Much of the progress since 2013 comes from major gains in rural water access, it says.
About 800 million more people in rural areas now have piped water, helping many countries move out of the lowest level of w...