Cyclone Ditwah and the New Climate Reality

Source: Factum

Why Sri Lanka Must Treat Adaptation as Urgently as Mitigation

Sri Lanka’s climate strategy, historically weighted toward mitigation, can no longer afford to treat adaptation as secondary. For years, Sri Lanka’s climate narrative has centred on reducing national emissions, transitioning to renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and aligning with global decarbonisation targets. However, the scale and speed of the destruction caused by Cyclone Ditwah in November 2025 demonstrate that climate impacts are now outpacing the country’s preparedness. Mitigation remains essential, but adaptation can no longer be the neglected sibling in our climate policy.

While tropical cyclones are not new to the South Asian region, the characteristics of Cyclone Ditwah were unusual, particularly the intensity of rainfall that unfolded over such a short period. As UNDP noted in early assessments of the disaster, satellite-based flood mapping revealed “unprecedented inundation patterns” and “widespread soil destabilisation across hill districts,” conditions consistent with the global scientific consensus on warming-driven extreme rainfall events.

This is supported by international attribution research. A growing body of evidence, including recent studies by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium (2025), shows that rising sea-surface temperatures and a warmer atmosphere, which holds more moisture, significantly increase the likelihood and intensity of extreme rainfall events in South Asia. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), 2022, also notes that heavy precipitation events have very likely become more frequent and more intense in many parts of the tropics due to human-induced warming. Cyclone Ditwah fits this pattern.

What unfolded in Sri Lanka was not merely a natural disaster. It was a climate-amplified event. And as the country’s geography and settlement patterns show, especially in landslide-prone central areas, Sri Lanka is acutely exposed. Without a major shift in climate planning, events like Ditwah will turn from shocks into recurring crises.

Why Sri Lanka has Historically Focused on Mitigation

Sri Lanka’s greater emphasis on mitigation over adaptation did not emerge accidentally. It stems from a mix of political, economic, and institutional factors. Mitigation projects, solar, wind, grid modernisation align neatly with economic development and donor interests. As scholars like Klein (2007) and Schipper (2006) argue, developing countries often prioritise mitigation because it is more compatible with national development planning, easier to quantify, and more attractive for climate finance. Sri Lanka followed the same path.

Sri Lanka, like many low-emission countries, framed its climate leadership through decarbonisation commitments. Mitigation was positioned as a contribution to global climate justice, even though domestic emissions have a negligible impact on global warming. Further, adaptation is complex. It requires cross-sector coordination, long-term land-use governance, technical capacity, and community-level implementation. Research by Mark Pelling (2011) shows that adaptation, unlike mitigation, forces governments to confront underlying vulnerabilities, poverty, informality, unregulated construction, and weak environmental enforcement. These are politically sensitive and difficult to reform. Mitigation, by contrast, is more technocratic, more fundable, and perceived as less politically disruptive. In addition, international climate frameworks themselves create incentives. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) often quantify mitigation targets more easily than adaptation outcomes. Consequently, Sri Lanka’s climate strategy evolved in a direction where emissions reduction goals were clearer, better funded, and more institutionally anchored than adaptation planning.

Why This Balance Must Change Now

Cyclone Ditwah illustrates that the old model, mitigate first, adapt later, is no longer viable. Several factors adjust to an immediate necessity. Adaptation is not preparation for a distant future; it is survival in a present reality. As UNDP assessments following Ditwah highlighted, millions were exposed to acute flood impacts within days, and entire districts experienced slope failures, road collapses, and agricultural devastation. These are not one-off anomalies but previews of a climate-altered future.

Floods and landslides triggered by extreme rainfall have become recurrent, expensive shocks. Sri Lanka’s already constrained fiscal position cannot absorb the recurring costs of recovery. Studies by the Asian Development Bank (2020) and the Climate Vulnerability Monitor (2025) note that climate damages tend to grow nonlinearly, eventually surpassing the economic benefits of development unless substantial adaptation measures are in place.

Even if Sri Lanka were to reach 100% renewable energy tomorrow, global warming would continue for decades due to historical emissions from industrialised countries. Adaptation, therefore, is the only strategy capable of reducing immediate risks to communities. As the IPCC emphasises, “mitigation without adaptation will leave many populations exposed to unavoidable climate hazards.” Unequal exposure to climate impacts is already visible: hillside farmers, estate-sector families, low-income urban settlements, and communities in floodplains face disproportionate risks. Adaptation, early warning systems, risk-sensitive housing, resilient infrastructure, and ecosystem restoration are fundamentally a social justice issue.

Rebalancing Sri Lanka’s Climate Strategy

Sri Lanka does not need to choose between mitigation and adaptation. It must pursue both, but with a stronger, more integrated approach to adaptation that reflects scientific reality and social vulnerability. Adaptation cannot remain a technical annexe to climate policy. It must be embedded in national budgeting, local government mandates, infrastructure planning, and land-use regulation. As UNDP suggested in its initial disaster briefings, community-level alert systems, rainfall-threshold monitoring, and evacuation protocols can dramatically reduce mortality during extreme events. Further, reforestation of degraded catchments, protection of wetlands, and restoration of riverbanks reduce landslide risk and flood peaks. Nature-based solutions are identified in numerous academic studies as among the most cost-effective adaptation tools. Cyclone Ditwah exposed how unregulated hillside development turns heavy rainfall into deadly landslides. Enforcing zoning laws and relocating at-risk families through participatory, dignified processes must become urgent state priorities.

Also, renewables, clean transport, and energy efficiency must continue, but be engineered to withstand floods, storms, and heat. Mitigation and adaptation should reinforce one another, not compete.

A Turning Point for Sri Lanka

Cyclone Ditwah is more than a disaster. It is a turning point that exposes the mismatch between Sri Lanka’s climate risks and its climate planning. The country cannot postpone adaptation while waiting for global emissions to fall. Nor can it rely solely on mitigation narratives rooted in older development assumptions.

If Sri Lanka is to protect lives, stabilise its economy, and build a climate-resilient future, adaptation must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with mitigation equal in priority, equal in investment, and equal in political commitment. This moment demands not just recovery, but transformation.

By Verangika Upananda, a researcher specializing in resource politics and is interested in sustainable development topics. She holds dual Master’s degrees in Development Studies from the Universities of Colombo and the University of Bayreuth, Germany and a BA in Social Sciences from the Open University of Sri Lanka. Her research spans the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, and Sri Lanka, integrating field-based insights with policy analysis. Verangika has worked in development consultancy and has served as a Visiting Lecturer in Economics at the Open University of Sri Lanka. She is currently a Research Specialist for Factum. 

Factum is an Asia-Pacific-focused think tank on International Relations, Tech Cooperation, and Strategic Communications accessible via www.factum.lk

The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the organizations.