Typhoons Noul, Dolphin & Chan-hom have lashed APAC testing our infrastructure – over a million were evacuated in China and Japan suffered 640 power outages. Yet, El Niño is just getting started with forecasts expecting a “Super El Niño” to kick in during 4Q2026.

So, this month, to find out if we are ready, we talk to globally renowned earth scientist Prof. Benjamin Horton on what a Super El Niño means for major APAC economies, while IWMI’s Dr. Giriraj Amarnath provides tools on how to stay ahead of El Niño. City-wide adaptation is needed to boost investor confidence says investment strategist Sadiq Currimbhoy. So, check out who’s doing what in our 5 key takeaways from SIWW2026 where global leaders gathered to discuss how to adapt cities to coastal flooding & water insecurity.

El Niño has been linked to the month-long battle to contain wildfires in Europe and horrific flooding from tropical cyclones in East Asia. But with a Super El Niño looming, things will likely get worse.

What’s a Super El Niño? How much stronger is it than a regular El Niño? Prof. Horton, previously Director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore and currently Dean of the School of Energy & Environment at CityU, answers our questions in “plain speak”.

He also shares from his Nature research quantifying the health impacts of El Niño. How is life expectancy affected? What are the economic costs of previous El Niño events? Is Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia or the US more affected? See our interview with him here.

Despite the abundance of forecasting data, El Niño’s impacts still take governments, businesses and farmers by surprise, causing a cascade of shocks from water scarcity to crop failure around the world. This El Niño, a new tool, ENSO Outlook, aims to break this cycle of under preparedness.

Launched in July 2026 by IWMI (International Water Management Institute) with support from CGIAR, the tool is the first of its kind to link climate data to localised & sector-specific impacts. So whether you’re a paddy farmer in Sri Lanka or a hydropower operator in Ethiopia or an agricultural insurer in California, the tool offers custom guidance.

So, check out the tool and use its AI agent to help you make the right decisions that anticipate El Niño rather than react to it. Also, see which governments & companies are staying ahead in our interview with Dr. Amarnath.

While cities/countries are prioritising resilience for typhoons and other types of extreme weather, they may overlook chronic risks such as sea level rise which has increased the frequency of coastal flooding by 4x since 1900.

That’s why it was great to see coastal threats front & centre alongside water security at this June’s SIWW (Singapore International Water Week). CWR was invited to experience the event across its key programmes – what a week it was!. We attended multiple Leaders Summits and closed-door CEO roundtables, as well as technical sessions covering topics ranging from coastal resilience and AI to data centres and water security.

It was great to see Singapore in the driving seat on coastal threats & resilience, facilitating knowledge sharing with vulnerable APAC countries.  While there’s been progress, sea level rise defence levels still vary widely across cities – some are already planning for the IPCC’s “cannot be ruled out” scenario by 2100 whereas others are looking at only the intermediate scenario by 2050 – find out who’s ahead & who’s not.

Climate scientists also gave a sobering message at SIWW2026: planning for climate overshoot is inevitable as even if temperatures go back down, the physical disasters triggered remain irreversible. Also, rising water insecurity means more innovation in “unconventional” water is needed to meet supply gaps. Can AI help with water savings? Or does it use more water than it saves? Find out in our 5 key takeaways.

As physical water risks escalate with the onset of a Super El Niño, building resilience on an asset level isn’t enough anymore; city-wide adaptation is imperative. With government finances stretched, cities need to attract private capital so finance needs to be a “foundational layer” for building resilience says Sadiq Currimbhoy.

As the lead author of “The Portfolio Approach and Financing Cities for Resilience”, a white paper sponsored by Tokio Marine & published by the Resilient Cities Network, Currimbhoy notes that cities that don’t systematically address physical climate risks will hollow out. How did Cape Town bounce back from the Day Zero drought in 2018? What can flood-prone cities do to prevent capital flight? Currimbhoy explains this all in his oped.

Importantly, he notes that insurance cannot be the only tool to manage rising climate risks. As more insurers pull out of high-risk areas chronically affected by coastal flooding and wildfires, it’s clear that to retain value, cities must not just focus on asset risk but what is “around-the-asset” & how those risks are managed.

We need a fundamental rethink of how our economies are organised as we are already in overshoot. Physical climate risks respond to today’s actual temperatures (currently at 1.45°C), rather than to 20-year averages, such as the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target.

Today, our infrastructure is already being tested – from flooding in Asia to heatwaves stranding trains in the UK & wildfires gobbling up arable land across Europe. Even the Danube River is drying up; crippling power plants are forcing Romania to blast its banks to divert water.

In short, we are already at infrastructure tipping points. But with risks rising faster than you think, we can no longer afford incremental reactive adaptation. Indeed, this Super El Niño could force us to finally embark on proactive transformative adaptation.

Experts say this Super El Niño will give us a glimpse of our future new normal. So gear up now and be as ready as you can – all eyes on 4Q2026.