On an almost daily basis, news headlines draw attention to the impact of climate change around the world. These are impacts to which we need to adapt. The policy world is responding. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change includes, for the first time, a Global Adaptation Goal. The UN Climate Conference in Bonn in November 2017, under the Presidency of Fiji, underscored the importance of building climate resilience. Many countries are starting to develop National Adaptation Plans. But adaptation is still a new area for many policy-makers and practitioners. When good solutions are developed we ought to be sharing knowledge with those who need it. The Global Adaptation Network was created to promote this exchange of knowledge

The importance of this issue lies in the fact that smoke haze pollution has been occurring for several decades in Southeast Asia and with each passing year the pollution gets worse and lasts longer (Lin et al 2017). While the haze in 2015 was the longest on record (Tan 2015) the pollution standards index (PSI) data from Singapore has exhibited increasingly higher peaks. The longer the issue goes unaddressed, the greater the public and environmental health impacts and economic costs become. Furthermore, it risks straining relations between the countries within the ASEAN region.

Climate change is already affecting every country on every continent through changing seasons and weather patterns, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather events. Goal 13 addresses the changes in climate that pose substantial risks for agriculture, water supplies, food production, ecosystems, energy security, and infrastructure.