This project aims to address the compounding and cascading crises faced by the Asia Pacific region, particularly in the food and energy sectors, caused by disasters and climate change. ESCAP resolution 78/1 commits to strengthen the resilience of the region’s economies and societies against wide-ranging socioeconomic effects of pandemics, natural disasters, climate change and other shocks. The project seeks to build the capacity of selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region to better manage the increasing and shifting variability of climate and disaster risks in food and energy systems to build long-term resilience. This project aims to achieve this objective by developing an integrated climate risk assessment toolkit, linking hazard information under different climate projection scenarios with exposure information in food and energy sectors based on the latest climate models and other food and energy system assessment frameworks, including the INFER food system risk assessment framework. This toolkit will help policymakers understand the complex nature of risks across their sectors and guide evidence-based policy actions. Separately, this project will also develop a climate adaptation toolkit using machine learning that recommends suitable climate adaptation policies and solutions based on a large set of available data on climate adaptation best practices around the world. The project also includes national capacity building workshops to enhance institutional capacities of target countries to conduct risk assessments of food and energy systems as well as a regional workshop to disseminate the findings and discuss challenges at the regional level.

The expected results of the project include improved capacity of target countries to access climate-food-energy risk data, enhanced institutional capacities to utilize such data for identifying anticipatory actions, national adaptation planning, and integration of climate risk scenarios into policies, plans, and strategies for building climate resilient food and energy systems.