Overview

• Almost 40 million square kilometres of ocean in the region experienced moderate to severe marine heatwaves in 2024, an area five times the size of Australia.
• Regional land and ocean temperatures averaged 0.48°C above the 1991-2020 baseline, marking record warmth across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
• Sea levels rose at nearly 4mm per year, outpacing the global average and posing existential risks to low-lying island nations.
• Satellite data show Indonesia’s sole tropical glacier lost up to half its mass last year and faces complete disappearance by 2026.
• The heatwave coincided with 12 tropical cyclones in the Philippines, deadly floods and landslides across the region, and the fifth mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef since 2016.