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Investment promotion is a competitive business, and nowhere more so than in Asia and the Pacific, which attracts more foreign direct investment than any other region. Each year a finite number of factories, data centres and regional headquarters go looking for a home, and hundreds of agencies compete to win them. Officers in these agencies guard their investor pipelines the way traders guard positions.

Every fishing trip starts with money already spent. Fuel must be paid for before a single fish is caught, with no guarantee that the day's catch will cover the cost. When fuel prices skyrocketed, fishers, boat operators, middlemen and vendors had to adapt, fishing less, sharing costs, diversifying their incomes or deciding how much of the increase they could pass on.

In Iloilo City, Philippines, the impacts of extreme heat are felt in everyday moments: waiting for transport under limited shade, walking through paved streets, working outdoors, sitting in classrooms or seeking care for heat-related illness. For older persons, children, outdoor workers, low-income communities, persons with disabilities and people with existing health conditions,  the extreme heat can quickly become more than uncomfortable. It can become unsafe.

A deer moving across a forest corridor doesn’t know when it has crossed a national border. Neither does an invasive plant nor a changing climate. However, the institutions that manage forests, land and biodiversity are still largely organized by individual countries. This mismatch sits at the heart of South and South-West Asia’s challenge on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 15 (Life on Land).

Asia and the Pacific is urbanizing faster than any other region. By 2050, its cities will be home to 3.4 billion people, up from 2.2 billion today – the equivalent of adding around two Delhi-sized cities every year. The region’s future will depend on how this urban expansion is managed – whether it delivers shared prosperity and well-being or deepens exclusions and vulnerability. Rising skylines across the region reflect expanding economic might and wealth.

Fifteen years ago, Bangladesh's garment industry symbolized low-cost production and mounting challenges of waste disposal. Today, it hosts the world's largest number of LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a widely used green building rating system) recycling-oriented garment factories, demonstrating how resource-efficient manufacturing can transform sustainability into a powerful business advantage.

The Asia-Pacific region has achieved remarkable economic growth in recent decades. While this progress has delivered enormous positive social benefits, it has also imposed a heavy environmental toll. Annual carbon emissions have more than doubled since 2000, driven by rapid industrialization, urbanization and rising living standards.

A strong El Niño is underway and is strengthening in the Pacific while a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is expected to develop. Both events are known to alter sea temperatures, rainfall and water levels, creating conditions that place mangroves under severe stress. Against the backdrop of a changing climate, these events can amplify local environmental conditions in ways that are difficult to detect until impacts become visible.

Inaction and maintaining the status quo of fossil fuel dependence carry significant costs. The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, caused enormous losses to the global economy, with many Asia-Pacific countries bearing disproportionately larger adverse impacts. Had these economies had a more diversified energy mix, they would have benefited from such resilience under current circumstances.

"If we increase prices, people won't buy" Sesenieli, farmer and cooked food vendor at Suva market. What happens when fuel prices rise, but customers cannot afford to pay more? Fuel prices are announced on the news and displayed at every service station, but the people who quietly absorb their impacts are rarely seen.