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Global Briefing
Climate Action Package
Climate Action Package (CAP) offers capacity building programmes as part
of Singapore's commitment to support
the region and fellow developing countries to address climate change and be more climate resilient.
Singapore Environment Institute, National Environment Agency
issue 17
037
Climate change (CC) refers to natural or human-induced changes in the climate state that persist for an
extended period, typically decades or longer. Since the 1950s, anthropogenic activities have led to various effects on the global climate. Understanding the scope and scale of the impacts associated with CC is an important first step to developing and implementing services designed to address or prevent these impacts. The impacts represent both direct (i.e. heat stress, exposure to extreme weather events) and indirect (i.e. economic loss, threats to health and well-being, displacement and forced migration, collective violence and civil conflict, and alienation from a degraded and potentially uninhabitable environment) consequences of three types of climate-related events:
1 extreme weather events (EWE) and natural disasters lasting for days, such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and short- duration heat waves;
2 weather events lasting for months or years such as droughts and long-duration heat waves; and
3 environmental changes lasting to the end of this century and beyond such as higher temperatures, sea level rise, and a permanently altered and potentially uninhabitable physical environment.
Each form of climate change can result in varying degrees of economic losses associated with property damage, loss of income and employment opportunities, and reduced economic productivity, especially in agriculture and fisheries; threats to health and well-being associated with EWE injuries and deaths, spread of vector-borne and respiratory illnesses, and heat-related stress, population displacement, and social conflict and inter-group violence. Both the timing and nature of these events as well as the manifestation of specific associations between an event and its psychological consequences have important implications for development and implementation of policies and practices.
Impacts of Climate-related Events
CC involves complex interplays between climate hazards, exposure, and vulnerability, resulting in growing risks. There are many risks and consequences. New diseases, more frequent pandemics, food shortages (food security), forced migration of displaced populations, and even wars. Coastal zones are vulnerable to rising sea levels, where impacts are apparent and growing and so are adaptation needs. Poor countries, in the long term, will continue to su er economically from CC much more than rich countries due to their greater exposure to very high