Surface ozone is a regional air pollutant growing in concentration in the Greater Mekong Sub-region and elsewhere in the world with serious implications for food security. Mean surface ozone concentrations are predicted to increase by about a quarter by 2020 in parts of the GMS. A number of important crops in the GMS are adversely affected by surface ozone at current concentrations, and recent studies predict East Asia is about to experience reductions in crop production due to increasing surface ozone, with major yield losses for wheat, rice, corn, and soybean. There is much less knowledge about impacts of surface ozone on biodiversity than on major crops, but surface ozone is known to have severe impacts on biodiversity. Impacts of other regional air pollutants, including acid deposition and the atmospheric brown cloud could also be important in the GMS within the next decade or two.

Human-induced climate change is a major environmental and development issue with serious implications for biodiversity, food security, and water. The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that observed changes in climate have already affected ecological, social, and economic systems, and sustainable development is threatened by climate change. The IPCC suggests that climate change is likely to result in a wide range of adverse effects including increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, increased intensity of storms, greater frequency of heat waves, floods and droughts, more rapid spread of diseases, and accelerated loss of biodiversity. These impacts are likely to reduce economic growth and exacerbate poverty in many developing countries. Examples of currently observed changes include:

Change in the characteristics of extreme weather and climate events (e.g. natural hazards such as storms and droughts);

• A general reduction on crop yields in many tropical and sub-tropical regions;
• Decreased water availability in water-scarce regions of the sub-tropics;
• Shifts in plant and animal distribution ranges; and,
• Increased exposure to vector-borne and water-borne diseases.

Due the dependence on agriculture and water resources in the GMS to support local livelihoods and economic development, these crop yield reductions will have major social, economic and environmental consequences.

If sustainable economic development is to be assured and the goals of the CEP-BCI are to be met, capacity building in all countries of the GMS is needed to strengthen regional assessments, communication and dissemination, and adaptive abilities in order to enable the environmental changes accompanying regional air pollution to be factored into development planning.

Countries of the Mekong subregion need to design and implement adaptation strategies aimed at enhancing the adaptive capacity and resilience of vulnerable communities as a matter of priority.

The project involved co-organizing four capacity building workshops to institutions in China, Thailand and Vietnam to adapt to climate change and air pollution using modeling, assessment and analysis.

Donor: Murdoch University (ADB funds)

Duration: November 2008 - December 2009

CAI-Asia contact:
May Ajero, may.ajero(at)cai-asia.org