Environment & Climate

The 2025 flood and cyclone crisis across Southeast and South Asia was driven by unusually intense monsoon conditions and late-season tropical systems, including Cyclones Senyar and Ditwah, with severe impacts reported in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Recent reports indicate the disaster caused well over 1,000 deaths across the region, with some sources estimating more than 1,600 fatalities when South Asia is included; impacts also included mass displacement, landslides, storm surges, and widespread damage to homes, schools, roads, and farms. Country-level impacts remain severe and still vary by source and update date. Reported figures include at least 604 fatalities in Indonesia as of Dec. 1, 2025, more than 162 deaths in Thailand, at least 98 deaths in Vietnam, and over 600 deaths in Sri Lanka, while Malaysia reported fatalities in the low single digits but tens of thousands displaced at the peak. Economic losses are also substantial: one regional estimate puts losses at more than US$10 billion, while Vietnam alone was reported at over US$3.2 billion and Thailand’s flood damage was estimated at about THB 23.6 billion (around US$700 million) in one 2025 assessment.

The Great Barrier Reef experienced consecutive mass coral bleaching events in 2024 and 2025, marking only the second back-to-back bleaching sequence on record after 2016–2017. The 2024 event was confirmed as the Reef’s fifth mass bleaching event and occurred during the fourth global coral bleaching event, which NOAA says began in 2023. AIMS reports that for the 2024 event, aerial surveys found prevalent bleaching on 73% of surveyed reefs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and, for the first time, extreme bleaching was observed in all three reef regions. Field studies also documented severe local impacts, including One Tree Island where about 80% of coral colonies were bleached by April 2024, with substantial mortality later recorded among some coral groups. In 2025, the Reef suffered a sixth mass bleaching event since 2016, again affecting the northern and central sections most strongly. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation said the 2025 event was less severe than 2024 but was the first time both of Australia’s World Heritage-listed reefs, the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo, bleached simultaneously. AIMS reported 281 reefs were surveyed across the Torres Strait, the northern Great Barrier Reef, and parts of the central region, with widespread bleaching and heat stress; by May 2025, the southern region was not considered at high enough heat-stress risk for aerial surveys. NOAA’s global update says bleaching-level heat stress from 1 January 2023 to 30 September 2025 affected about 84.4% of the world’s coral reef area and mass coral bleaching has been documented in at least 83 countries and territories, making this the largest global bleaching event recorded to date.

The Horn of Africa is facing a renewed food-security shock, but the latest evidence points to a mix of extreme dryness and localized flood impacts rather than a single El Niño-driven event. FEWS NET reported in December 2025 that the eastern Horn was experiencing one of the driest October-December rainy seasons on record, with widespread moisture deficits, failed or near-failed seasons, and crop losses severe enough that some areas saw non-irrigated harvests projected at less than 10% of average in Somalia’s Bay and Bakool regions. The report said Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia were all seeing widespread Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes, while parts of Somalia were in Emergency (IPC Phase 4). Country-level impacts remain severe. Concern Worldwide reported that the 2021-23 drought was the worst in the Horn since 1981 and left over 31.9 million people in need of humanitarian aid, including more than 23.5 million facing acute food insecurity; it also said at least 6.5 million people were facing high levels of hunger across Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, including about 2.1 million in Kenya and 3.4 million in Somalia, with Somalia projected to rise to 4.4 million by the end of 2025. The same source noted almost 742,000 children under five and more than 109,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women were acutely malnourished and in urgent need of treatment. CARE’s reporting on the 2023 floods also shows how quickly climate shocks compound risk in the region: floods linked to intense rainfall killed more than 230 people and displaced hundreds of thousands across Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, with Somalia alone reporting 99 deaths and more than 695,000 displaced and Ethiopia over 760,000 displaced.

The Arctic continues to warm nearly four times faster than the global average, driving widespread permafrost thaw including abrupt events like thermokarst formation and retrogressive thaw slumps, with profound implications for ecosystems, infrastructure, and global climate feedbacks. A new comprehensive database documents 19,540 thawing permafrost locations in Alaska from 1950 to present, revealing active thaw across ecoregions and enabling improved mapping and predictive modeling. Thawing permafrost is mobilizing iron and heavy metals into rivers, creating 'rusting rivers' in areas like Alaska's Brooks Range, potentially impacting water quality, fish, and food chains, though no drinking water contamination has been confirmed yet. Permafrost stores about one-third of global soil organic carbon, and while 2°C warming may temporarily enhance the GHG sink in Arctic permafrost ecosystems via increased CO2 uptake, it weakens sinks in alpine regions and raises concerns over methane emissions from wetter soils. The NOAA Arctic Report Card 2025 notes 2025 as the warmest and wettest year on record, with precipitation records and ongoing glacier losses exacerbating thaw risks. Models continue to project substantial near-surface permafrost losses this century under high-emission scenarios.

The Bangladesh 2025 monsoon flood crisis, triggered by heavy rainfall and a deep depression over the Bay of Bengal in late May, has severely impacted southeastern, northeastern, and northern regions, with flash floods continuing into July. Affected districts include Sylhet, Sunamganj, Cox's Bazar, Chattogram, Cumilla, Noakhali, Feni, Patuakhali, and others, where over 80 villages in Cox's Bazar are underwater, 50,000 people marooned in Teknaf, and Rohingya camps housing 15,000 impacted residents. Floods have caused 71 fatalities in the southeast by early September, submerged 11,590 hectares of crops in Cumilla alone, damaged embankments, roads, schools, and fish farms, and paralyzed daily life with rivers exceeding danger levels.

The Philippines is the world's top contributor to ocean plastic pollution, leaking approximately 356,371 to 360,000 metric tonnes annually into marine environments, far ahead of India at 126,513-130,000 tonnes. This represents mismanaged plastic from rapid urbanization, consumerism, and inadequate waste management infrastructure, with the country generating 2.7 million tons of plastic waste yearly—20% entering oceans—and 1.7 million tons of post-consumer plastic including 164 million sachets daily. A World Bank report from December 2025 confirms over 0.3 million metric tons leak annually, equivalent to 8.8% of mismanaged waste, exacerbating impacts on fisheries, tourism, public health, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

South Asia continues to face an escalating extreme-heat crisis, with India and Pakistan among the most affected countries. A World Weather Attribution analysis found that a 15-day April heatwave in northwestern India and Pakistan became both hotter and more likely due to human-caused climate change, with the likelihood of such an event increasing by about 15 times and intensity rising by about 1.0°C for a 1-in-5-year event. The analysis also reported at least 37 heat-related deaths in India and 10 in Karachi, Pakistan during the 2026 episode, alongside record electricity demand and agricultural drought conditions affecting over 1 million km². The latest World Meteorological Organization and World Health Organization initiatives underscore that extreme heat is now a major regional health and economic threat. WMO says Asia is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, while the WHO-WMO Climate and Health Joint Programme launched new South Asia efforts in 2026 to improve heat early warning, health risk assessments, and heat action planning. Berkeley Earth also reported that 2025 was exceptionally warm globally, with record annual warmth affecting an estimated 770 million people, concentrated heavily in Asia, including significant populations in China, Pakistan, and Central Asia—reinforcing the broader regional heat trend.

Ocean dead zones are low-oxygen (hypoxic) coastal and marine areas that can no longer support most marine life. The latest source set confirms the main human-driven causes remain nutrient pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage, and industrial waste, which fuels algal blooms; when the algae die, decomposition consumes oxygen. Warming waters also worsen the problem by holding less dissolved oxygen and increasing stratification, which reduces mixing and oxygen replenishment in deeper waters. NOAA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution both note that these conditions are expanding dead zones globally and threatening fisheries and coastal ecosystems. Regionally, the Baltic Sea remains one of the largest and most persistent dead-zone hotspots because its semi-enclosed geography limits water exchange and traps nutrients. In the Gulf of Mexico, NOAA continues to forecast a large seasonal hypoxic zone, with the 2026 forecast at 5,574 square miles, above the long-term average of 5,244 square miles and following a 2023 measured size of 8,185 square miles. More broadly, sources cited here describe over 500 dead zones worldwide and continued global expansion since the 1960s, with major impacts on biodiversity, fisheries, and coastal economies. Direct population exposure is hard to quantify globally, but the scale of dependence on ocean resources is large, with over 3 billion people relying on oceans for livelihoods and food security.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued to improve into early 2026. Brazil’s INPE reported that DETER alerts detected 1,325 km² of forest clearing from August 1, 2025, to January 31, 2026, down from 2,050 km² a year earlier, while the trailing 12-month total fell to 3,770 km² from 4,245 km². INPE’s PRODES system also recorded 5,796 km² of deforestation in the 12 months ending July 31, 2025, the lowest annual figure since 2014 and about 11% below the prior year. The decline has not eliminated the crisis. Forest degradation remains severe, and the region still faces pressure from cattle ranching, illegal mining, road expansion, and fire-driven forest loss. WRI reports that Brazil saw a 42% reduction in primary forest loss in 2025 and its lowest rate of non-fire primary forest loss on record, but stresses that permanent agriculture remains the dominant long-term driver of forest loss. Reuters and conservation groups also note that state-level protection remains uneven and that degraded forests and fire scars continue to threaten ecosystem stability.

The Colombian Amazon remains highly exposed to climate-driven hydrological extremes, but the latest verified evidence supports an ongoing drought-and-low-water risk picture rather than a confirmed 2025 transition to exceptional flooding. NASA reported that in October 2024 rivers in the Amazon basin fell to record-low levels, while drought across South America disrupted transportation, crops, hydroelectric generation, and daily life in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Brazil. NASA also noted that western Amazonas in Brazil, northern Peru, eastern Colombia, and southern Venezuela received more than 160 mm less rain than usual during July-September 2024, and streamflow dropped more than fourfold in the period assessed. In Colombia specifically, a widely cited assessment reports that from November 2023 to January 2024 the country experienced six droughts, 323 wildfires, water scarcity in 69 municipalities, and about 45,000 people directly affected. The UN OCHA estimate cited in the same source says 9.3 million people in Colombia were exposed to increased temperature, precipitation variability, and food and water shortages. Broader Amazon research indicates climate change is the main driver making these droughts more likely and more severe, with one attribution study finding the 2023 Amazon drought became about 10 times more likely for meteorological drought and about 30 times more likely for agricultural drought due to human-caused climate change. There is no verified source in the provided results confirming exceptional flooding in the Colombian Amazon in February-March 2025; instead, the latest evidence points to continued vulnerability to both extreme low-water periods and future flood extremes as climate change intensifies hydrological variability.