World bank group climate change action plan 2021-2025 South Asia roadmap

With an extended period of robust economic growth before the global COVID-19 pandemic,
the South Asia Region (SAR) has achieved impressive improvements in human development and
declines in poverty in the past few decades. The extreme poverty rate fell from 58 percent to 15
percent from 1981 to 2014, while the primary school completion rate rose from 50 percent in 1980
to 90 percent in 2019. However, to continue economic growth and increase shared prosperity,
South Asia must enhance economic and social inclusion while alleviating increasing threats to its
natural resource base. One of three children in South Asia are stunted, pointing to the immense need
to feed more than 1.8 billion children and adults. With the world’s second-largest number of people
living off the grid more than 150 million people without electricity South Asia also has hundreds
of millions more who live with insufficient or unreliable access to energy. Cities in South Asia
are expected to welcome more than 200 million more residents (or about the entire population of
Pakistan) by 2030, necessitating reliable access to basic services, productive livelihoods, and livable
and resilient housing. Job creation in South Asia is essential, with an estimated 1.5 million people
entering the job market every month over the next two decades. Going forward, South Asia will
need to transition to a green, resilient, and inclusive development trajectory that enables high-value,
high-productivity growth and diversification away from natural resource-dependent livelihoods to
ensure competitiveness in the global economy.
South Asia already suffers from climate disasters and is one of the most vulnerable regions to
climate risks (see Figure 1). Aggressive action at the country and regional level is needed to better
adapt and enhance resilience. More than half of all South Asians, or 750 million people in the eight
countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka were
affected by one or more climate-related disasters in the last two decades. The primary climate related risks in South Asia are flood damages, food and water insecurity, and extreme heat from rising
temperatures. The changing climate could sharply diminish living conditions for up to 800 million
people in a region that already has some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.
Projected losses from climate change in GDP per capita for South Asian countries are higher than the
global average of about seven percent, with Bhutan facing a potential loss of 18 percent, Nepal 13
percent, India 10 percent, and Pakistan 10 percent in 2100.
Accelerating climate adaptation is critical to building resilience to the rapidly warming climate in the
region. South Asia, along with the rest of the world, is encountering a “new climate normal” in which
intensifying heat waves, cyclones, droughts, and floods are beginning to test the limits of citizens,
businesses, and governments to deal with climate change, particularly with its disproportionate
impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable. With sea level rise likely to make parts of highly
populated coastal areas uninhabitable in the future, estimates predict 40 million climate migrants
in South Asia by 2050. South Asia’s unique climate context the uncertainty of future monsoon
patterns, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, and the vulnerability of low-lying coastal cities point
to the urgency of adaptation.

source:

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/1218d6c3-663d-5881-a8fe-b79c4284653d