SRILANKA, Dec. 4 -- The rising death toll and widespread infrastructure ruin from the latest deluges serve as a brutal, unmistakable warning: Sri Lanka's socio-economic progress is fundamentally at risk. Climate change is no longer a future threat; it is a present danger. With the island facing a surge in extreme rainfall and crippling heatwaves -threatening food security and livelihoods- there is simply no time to waste.

It is once again proven that climate change poses a major risk to Sri Lanka's socio-economic progress. What happened this time in terms of floods and landslides is a reminder that Sri Lanka is vulnerable to unexpected, climate events.

This time, the entire country was affected, more or less. Enormity of devastation i...