The green transition in Asia and the Pacific remains complex—with high uncertainty in 2025 and the years to come. Yet, time is of the essence: according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2024 was the warmest year on record and the first year to breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels mark.1 Costs associated with climate change are increasing and estimated to be USD 144 billion in 2014 – a 16 per cent increase (five times faster than global GDP growth), according to Swiss Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company.2 The Asia-Pacific region is bearing the brunt of this “climate breakdown,” as termed by UN Secretary-General António.3 In 2024, devastating floods, early-onset heat waves, and thirteen typhoons impacted numerous Asia and Pacific countries.

The climate emergency will affect the global community, but the effects will not be distributed equally. Of the top countries most at risk from the negative effects of climate change, 50 per cent of them are Asian and Pacific Islands regions, including Fiji, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Japan, and India.4 The Economic Survey in India stated that India is the seventh-most vulnerable country, with 93 per cent of days in 2024 marked by significant climate events such as heatwaves, cyclones, and floods.5 An analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) suggests that three out of four districts in India are extreme event hotspots, with 40 per cent of the districts exhibiting a swapping trend, i.e., traditionally flood-prone areas are witnessing more frequent and intense droughts and vice-versa.6 Addressing the green transition in Asia and the Pacific remains highly complex: Countries in the region include behemoths like China and India, a range of Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). It is a highly sensitive geopolitical theatre with millennia of civilisational history and deep colonial scars that today houses about 4.3 billion people.7 It includes some of the world’s most densely populated and some of the most remote areas, some of the richest and some of the most marginalised, vulnerable, and economically weak communities. This complexity requires decision-makers and implementing partners to urgently develop and apply more nuanced, country-specific and subnational approaches for a successful green transition that protects people, planet and profits and creates jobs. In short, we need to create an Asia Pacific Green Development Agenda.

The urgency for the Asia Pacific Green Development Agenda is further exacerbated by the increasing volatile political environment with key outside partners like the US, the EU and Russia competing for influence and power while wobbling on their own green growth agendas: the US reversed and undermines its interest and ability to lead on climate change, a likely conservative election outcome in Germany in February 2025 potentially undermines the ambitious EU’s green transition plans, and a possible re-evaluation of Australia’s regional strategy might be due after its election in early 2025. Similarly, frustrations about traditional multilateral organisations mount in the region for their failures to address climate and biodiversity risks.