Cities and farms inundated by floods, houses and roads buried by landslides, crops wilting in scorching heat, health workers with health equipment suffering from heat stroke.
Since the beginning of the summer, scenes of devastation and misery have been unfolding across China, as the world’s most populous nation faces a relentless torrent of extreme weather emergencies.
Scientists have warned for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent. Now, like much of the world, China is bearing the brunt.
Since the country’s rainy season began in May, heavy storms have brought severe flooding and landslides to areas of southern China, killing dozens of people, displacing millions and causing billions of yuan in economic losses.
In June, extreme rains broke “historic records” in coastal Fujian province and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. At the same time, a heat wave began to envelop northern China, pushing temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
This heat wave has already reached half of the country, affecting more than 900 million people – or about 64% of the population. All but two northeastern provinces have issued high temperature alerts, with 84 cities issuing their highest level alerts last Wednesday.
In recent weeks, a total of 71 weather stations across China have recorded record temperatures. Four cities — three in central Hebei province and one in southwest Yunnan — had temperatures reaching 44 degrees Celsius, according to the National Climate Center.
The sweltering heat has coincided with a spike in Covid-19 cases, making government-mandated mass testing even more excruciating for residents — including the elderly — who wait in long lines in the sun.
It has also become a dangerous task for healthcare workers who, as part of the government’s zero Covid policy, are required to spend long hours outdoors covered from head to toe in airtight protective gear while administering the tests.
Several videos of healthcare workers collapsing to the ground due to heat stroke have gone viral on social media.
The heat wave also caused power outages in some regions and hit the country’s agricultural production, threatening to drive up food prices even further.
The worst could be yet to come, according to Yao Wenguang, an official at the Ministry of Water Resources who oversees flood and drought prevention. “It is predicted that from July to August there will be more extreme weather events, and regional flood and drought conditions will be heavier than normal,” Yao told the state-run Xinhua news agency last month.
Accounting for the costs
China is a “sensitive area” that has been significantly affected by climate change, with temperatures rising faster than the global average, according to the country’s latest climate change document, published by the China Meteorological Administration in August last year.
Between 1951 and 2020, China’s average annual surface temperature rose at a rate of 0.26 degrees Celsius per decade, according to the report. Sea levels off China’s coasts rose faster than the global average between 1980 and 2020, according to the report.
Climate change could make extreme events — like summer floods, which China has faced for centuries — more frequent and intense, said Johnny Chan, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the City University of Hong Kong.
A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, potentially leading to heavier storms, while global warming can alter atmospheric circulation, which can contribute to extreme weather conditions such as heat waves, Chan said.
“We should be really concerned, because these extreme weather events really affect the most underprivileged, disadvantaged and vulnerable parts of the population – those in rural areas, or those that don’t have air conditioning.” said Chan.
For China, the size of its population and economy means the scale of damage from extreme weather events is often enormous.
Tropical cyclones, floods and droughts are estimated to cost China an estimated $238 billion a year – the largest in the Asia-Pacific region and nearly three times the estimated loss suffered by India or Japan, according to a report released this year. passed by the World Meteorological Organization.
Mortality related to heat waves in China increased fourfold from 1990 to 2019, reaching 26,800 deaths in 2019, according to a Lancet study published in 2020.
new reality
Meanwhile, many Chinese are just beginning to realize that climate change will affect them personally.
In 2019, researchers found that, compared to other countries, public concerns about global warming and climate change in China were “relatively low.”
The Chinese government has pledged to bring greenhouse gases to a peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
For many Chinese, the dangers of extreme weather fueled by climate change hit their homes last summer when devastating floods killed 380 people in the central city of Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province.
In July 2021, the city of 12 million was hit by a storm “once every thousand years”, the local weather station said, but officials were ill-prepared and failed to heed five consecutive red alerts for torrential rains. – which should have led to the interruption of meetings and suspension of classes and business.
Floodwater gushed into the tunnels of the city’s subway system, trapping hundreds of passengers and killing 12 of them in a tragedy that gripped the country.
Liu Junyan, leader of Greenpeace’s energy and climate projects in East Asia, said the floods in Zhengzhou were a wake-up call for the Chinese government and public.
“The central government and local governments have started to become aware that climate change is a huge threat to society and its sustainable development,” Liu said, adding that he had noticed more discussions about climate change in China’s traditional and social media.
Since last summer, many Chinese cities have improved their emergency response systems for rain. In May, authorities in southern Guangzhou suspended classes, advised residents to work from home, closed construction sites and suspended public transport in parts of the city after warnings of torrential rain.
In June of this year, the Chinese government released a new policy document to improve its response to climate change, which it said not only created long-term challenges but also made the country more vulnerable to “sudden and extreme” events.
“Climate change has already had serious adverse impacts on China’s natural ecological system and has continued to spread and penetrate the economy and society,” the government said in its national climate change adaptation strategy.
The federal administration has pledged to make China a “climate resilient society” by 2035, building a national system to monitor and assess climate risks and increasing early warning capabilities.
Liu said the policy document is “very large and ambitious” guidance for local governments, but lacks implementation details.
“The impact of climate change can be very localized and its threat to vulnerable communities can be very different from place to place,” she said. “Local governments have yet to develop more detailed and tangible plans to implement this grand strategy.”
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
