Asia tourism faces climate chaos

By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Enjoy your exotic Asian beach or skiing holidays while you can.

In coming decades, warmer weather, rising seas, more intense storms, even changes in ocean currents will literally wipe some idyllic destinations off the tourist map, experts say.

Thousands, and possibly millions, of jobs could be lost.

Tourism accounts for 35 percent of the Maldives' annual GDP of around $800 million.

But the Indian Ocean island chain, on average just 1.5 metres (five feet) above sea level, risks disappearing within generations if sea levels rise in line with the U.N. climate panel's predictions.

Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting in Brussels on Friday issued the bleakest U.N. warning yet about the impacts of global warming.

"Our entire tourism infrastructure is coastal-based," Maldives Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "If sea levels were to rise and destroy all our beaches, then obviously the main attraction is gone."

"We are reputed to be a diving destination ... What climate change will also do is raise the (sea) temperature, which will kill the reefs," he added.