Deadly Asian floods are no fluke. They’re a climate warning, scientists
say
[December 03, 2025]
By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and ANTON L. DELGADO
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Southeast Asia is being pummeled by unusually
severe floods this year, as late-arriving storms and relentless rains
wreak havoc that has caught many places off guard.
Deaths have topped 1,400 across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, with
more than 1,000 still missing in floods and landslides. In Indonesia,
entire villages remain cut off after bridges and roads were swept away.
Thousands in Sri Lanka lack clean water, while Thailand’s prime minister
acknowledged shortcomings in his government's response.
Malaysia is still reeling from one its worst floods, which killed three
and displaced thousands. Meanwhile, Vietnam and the Philippines have
faced a year of punishing storms and floods that have left hundreds
dead.
What feels unprecedented is exactly what climate scientists expect: A
new normal of punishing storms, floods and devastation.
“Southeast Asia should brace for a likely continuation and potential
worsening of extreme weather in 2026 and for many years immediately
following that," said Jemilah Mahmood, who leads the think tank Sunway
Centre for Planetary Health in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Asia is facing the full force of the climate crisis
Climate patterns last year helped set the stage for 2025's extreme
weather.
Atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the most on
record in 2024. That “turbocharged” the climate, the United Nation's
World Meteorological Organization says, resulting in more extreme
weather.
Asia is bearing the brunt of such changes, warming nearly twice as fast
as the global average. Scientists agree that the intensity and frequency
of extreme weather events are increasing.
Warmer ocean temperatures provide more energy for storms, making them
stronger and wetter, while rising sea levels amplify storm surges, said
Benjamin Horton, a professor of earth science at the City University of
Hong Kong.
Storms are arriving later in the year, one after another as climate
change affects air and ocean currents, including systems like El Nino,
which keeps ocean waters warmer for longer and extends the typhoon
season. With more moisture in the air and changes in wind patterns,
storms can form quickly.
“While the total number of storms may not dramatically increase, their
severity and unpredictability will," Horton said.
Governments were unprepared
The unpredictability, intensity, and frequency of recent extreme weather
events are overwhelming Southeast Asian governments, said Aslam Perwaiz
of the Bangkok-based intergovernmental Asian Disaster Preparedness
Center. He attributes that to a tendency to focus on responding to
disasters rather than preparing for them.
“Future disasters will give us even less lead time to prepare," Perwaiz
warned.
In Sri Lanka’s hardest-hit provinces, little has changed since 2004
Indian Ocean tsunami, said Sarala Emmanuel, a human-rights researcher in
Batticaloa. It killed 230,000 people.
"When a disaster like this happens, the poor and marginalized
communities are the worst affected,” Emmanuel said. That includes poor
tea plantation workers living in areas prone to landslides.
Unregulated development that damages local ecosystems has worsened flood
damage, said Sandun Thudugala of the Colombo-based non-profit Law and
Society Trust. Sri Lanka needs to rethink how it builds and plans, he
said, taking into account a future where extreme weather is the norm.
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This aerial photo taken using drone shows a village affected by a
flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, on Dec. 1,
2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara, File)
Videos of logs swept downstream in Indonesia suggested deforestation
may have made the floods worse. Since 2000, the flood-inundated
Indonesian provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra have
lost 19,600 square kilometers (7,569 square miles) of forest, an
area larger than the state of New Jersey, according to Global Forest
Watch.
Officials rejected claims of illegal logging, saying the timber
looked old and probably came from landholders.
Billions are lost, while climate finance is limited
Countries are losing billions of dollars a year because of climate
change.
Vietnam estimates that it lost over $3 billion in the first 11
months of this year because of floods, landslides and storms.
Thailand's government data is fragmented, but its agriculture
ministry estimates about $47 million in agricultural losses since
August. The Kasikorn Research Center estimates the November floods
in southern Thailand alone caused about $781 million in losses,
potentially shaving off 0.1% of GDP.
Indonesia doesn't have data for losses for this year but its annual
average losses from natural disasters are $1.37 billion, its finance
ministry says.
Costs from disasters are an added burden for Sri Lanka, which
contributes a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions but is at the
frontline of climate impacts, while it spends most of its wealth to
repay foreign loans, said Thudugala.
"There is also an urgent need for vulnerable countries like ours to
get compensated for loss and damages we suffer because of global
warming,” Thudugala said.
“My request ... is support to recover some of the losses we have
suffered,” said Rohan Wickramarachchi, owner of a commercial
building in the central Sri Lankan town of Peradeniya that was
flooded to its second floor. He and dozens of other families he
knows must now start over.
Responding to increasingly desperate calls for help, at the COP30
global climate conference last month in Brazil, countries pledged to
triple funding for climate adaptation and make $1.3 trillion in
annual climate financing available by 2035. That’s still woefully
short of what developing nations requested, and it's unclear if
those funds will actually materialize.
Southeast Asia is at a crossroads for climate action, said Thomas
Houlie of the science and policy institute, Climate Analytics. The
region is expanding use of renewable energy but still reliant on
fossil fuels.
“What we’re seeing in the region is dramatic and it’s unfortunately
a stark reminder of the consequences of the climate crisis," Houlie
said.
___
Delgado reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Edna Tarigan
in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Thailand,
Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, Eranga Jayawardena in Kandy, Sri
Lanka, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this
report.
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