Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam (heatwave)

Across Southeast Asia, heatwaves are occurring more frequently and intensely, and longer.

In April through May 2016, several regions across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines broke their all-time air temperature records during one of Southeast Asia’s worst heat waves on record (Thirumalai et al., 2017).

Reaching up to 45°C, some of the world’s largest rice producing nations, such as Thailand and Vietnam, experienced decreases in yields (Suwanmontri, Kamoshita and Fukai, 2020; Minh, 2016).

Over 150 people died and hundreds of millions of people were affected. On average and across all sectors, Thailand and Cambodia are suffering from the region’s highest heat-related losses of working hours, reaching 7.53 and 5.34% respectively (ILO, 2019).

By 2045, Southeast Asia is estimated to bear the greatest loss in labour productivity across the world, totaling at a 16% decrease as a result of heat stress (Verisk Maplecroft, 2017).

Read more about heat stress here.

Read more about socio-economic risks related to climate change here.