Financing the Green Transition and Extreme Weather in Southeast Asia - Top Stories of the Week

Explore critical climate and environmental challenges through this 12-minute video compilation from the World Economic Forum covering four urgent topics. Learn about climate scientist Johan Rockström's three-point strategy to return global warming to 1.5°C targets, as he explains why the planet will inevitably breach this threshold permanently within the next 5-10 years after touching it for the first time in 2024. Discover how protecting the world's most vulnerable tropical forests could save 25 million jobs, while understanding that the planet loses forest area equivalent to South Korea's size annually, with nearly one-quarter of all tropical forests at high risk according to UNEP reports. Examine the severe impact of extreme weather on Southeast Asian migrant workers, where 9 in 10 face challenges including lost wages, absenteeism, and poor health, with extreme heat identified as the primary threat and four low-cost solutions to reduce heat stress effects. Understand green transition financing through insights from Standard Chartered's Chief Sustainability Officer Marisa Drew, who discusses emerging financial instruments designed to facilitate capital flows for global economic sustainability transformation and explores how society determines value in environmental investments.

Syllabus

0:14 - 3 ways to get back to 1.5°C - A climate scientist's message to COP30: In the next 5-10 years, it’s ‘inevitable’ the planet will breach 1.5°C of global warming on a more permanent basis, after it touched the boundary for the first time in 2024, says Johan Rockström, Joint Director of PIK Potsdam.
3:38 - Protecting the most at-risk tropical forests would save 25 million jobs: Every year, the planet loses an area of tropical forest equivalent to the size of South Korea. And overall, almost one-quarter of all tropical forests are at high risk of being lost, according to a new report by the UNEP.
5:29 - Extreme weather harms 9 in 10 migrants in Southeast Asia: Lost wages, absenteeism, poor health: the impacts of extreme weather on workers in Southeast Asia are both severe and rising. A survey of workers by People’s Courage International found that extreme heat is the biggest challenge they face. But there are effective, low-cost ways to lessen the impacts of heat stress on workers. Here are 4 of them.
7:07 - Saving the planet requires money. This expert explores how to finance the green transition: ‘We need to think about what we place value on,’ says Marisa Drew, Chief Sustainability Officer of Standard Chartered. A host of financial instruments are springing up to smooth the capital flows required for the sustainable transformation of the global economy. Here, she talks us through some of the main ones.