Barack Obama recently baffled Republicans by devoting a prime-time speaking event in Asia to climate change. Not button-hot topics like the Paris attacks, Syria's unraveling or refugees, but one many U.S. lawmakers deride as a cynical hoax cooked by anti-capitalists.
But it was the perfect call by the U.S. president in the perfect place. Manila is one of the Asian megacities that may be completely underwater within a couple of decades if we don't act boldly to reduce the carbon emissions raising sea levels, wreaking havoc with weather patterns and blackening skies.
Asia no longer needs scientific reports — looking out the window will suffice. What unsafe air in Beijing and New Delhi, haze blanketing Malaysia and Singapore and droughts in Australia suggest is that humankind is at environmental inflection point. New York's own brush with developing-nation status amid 2012's Hurricane Sandy will look like a light spring rain in this part of the world by 2030.