The CWR APACCT 20 Index was developed to help close the knowledge gap to fast-track action on decarbonisation and adaptation to protect vulnerable areas. It benchmarks 20 APAC capitals and key cities for chronic coastal threats and provides a risk snapshot. The Index assesses stacked locked-in SLR risks for 1.5˚C, 2˚C, 3˚C and 4˚C for each indicator (i.e. land area, population, key infrastructure) while including subsidence, storm surge and government adaptation action. Thus, the purpose of this indicator is to help gauge the absolute and relative coastal threats facing these 20 APAC cities by benchmarking underlying long-term physical threats from locked-in SLR and storm surge exposure as well as assessing the impact of adaptation actions taken by various governments as these can alleviate the risks faced by cities to a certain extent. In turn, using this finance-driven and practical index can help re-calibrate tail risks, re-think long term capital allocation decisions, and engage companies and governments to fast-track action.

Conclusions from the CWR APACCT 20 Index: Adaptation planning is imperative, but the index rankings reveal that not all governments are taking action to protect their cities despite high exposure to coastal threats. Tapei and Macao are at the bottom of the 1.5°C and 4°C CWR APACCT 20 Indexes. Despite high vulnerability, other cities with lacklustre adaptations are Hong Kong and Tokyo. At the other end of the spectrum, Singapore leads the ranking in both 1.5°C and 4°C CWR APACCT 20 Indexes with over SGD100bn of expenditure on adaptation measures such as raising critical infrastructure by 5 meters. While Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, are highly vulnerable, their adaptation efforts, including reinforcing and building sea walls, make up for their high rankings. As a result of Jakarta’s ambitious plans of moving its administrative capital plus building sea walls, artificial islands and polders, the city is ranked n°5 in the Indexes.

The CWR APACCT 20 Index is a finance-driven and practical index that can be used to re-calibrate tail risks, re-think long term capital allocation decisions, and engage companies and governments to fast-track action.

The CWR APACCT 20 Index is part of a 5-part report “CWR Coastal Capital Threat Series”. The reports include an overview of the latest science-based research on sea level rise and storm surge and their tail risk implications for finance; details on the development of the CWR APACCT 20 Index; factsheets with maps and data for all 20 APAC cities; highlights the implications for sovereign credit ratings; and provides a step-by-step guide on how to assess and value the risks as well as a list of recommended must-do’s and next steps for: governments; central banks/financial regulators; banks; and asset owners/managers.

The report “Waterproofing APAC To Avoid Atlantis – Executive Summary & Next Steps” is the executive summary of the entire series of reports. This step-by-step guide can be used by governments, finance and the private sector to ensure resilience in the face of rising seas. It provides an overview of the three major steps necessary to ensure resilience in the face of our changing risk landscape:

• Step 1: Need-to-know new risk landscape – an executive summary of the latest climate science on coastal threats and analyses of physical impacts at various temperature scenarios plus government and central bank adaptation actions/inactions;
• Step 2: Threat exposure assessment – a guide to using the CWR APACCT 20 Index to assess relative and absolute risks across APAC, how to build various base and worst-case coastal threat scenarios as well as changing regulatory landscapes driven by central banks globally plus other available tools; and
• Step 3: Take action to switch from hard to soft landing – a list of recommended must-do’s as well as next steps for: 1) governments; 2) central banks & financial regulators; 3) banks and 4) asset owners & managers.