China Faces the Reality of Climate Change

As global powers meet in a string of summits throughout 2009 on the road to the Copenhagen world summit, some experts are reminding us that the environment is not dealing with climate change on the same schedule. Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns are changing the way the Earth’s weather patterns work, most frequently, visibly and dramatically in the form of destructive and often tragic storms.

He Lifu of the National Meteorological Centre recently said to the China Daily newspaper, according to the Guardian in the UK, that China will face more frequent weather disasters like droughts, floods and other storms- all of which have been increasing in frequency and severity over the past two decades. In addition to the human tolls possible, He Lifu warns that these disasters have the potential to hurt crops and economic growth in China.

"Extreme weather will be more frequent in the future due to the instability of the atmosphere, and global warming might be the indirect cause,” he said.

He noted that the National Meteorological Centre responded to 16 emergencies last year, the highest number since it began in1949. Alarmist? Perhaps. While it is possible that the agency has simply begun responding to more incidents or changed the way they define emergency, the climate numbers and evidence seem to point to a disturbing rise in these kind of weather disasters. 

Since the 1990’s the annual economic cost of intense weather has risen close to $10 Billion says statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

What to do?

Farmers in China are taking matters into their own hands, and not by planting organic crops or trying new fertilizers. Wheat producers in Henan, Shandong and Hebei shot chemical pellets into the clouds in an effort to stop hail and heavy rain, both of which have the potential of destroying their crops.  are resorting to their own measures to avoid losses.

But it’s not just what falls from the sky that is threatening- what doesn’t can do just as much damage. Drought is also a major issue, and the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters says that drought has become more frequent since the 1990’s and, in turn, caused more crop failures. The China Daily reported that the annual grain loss from drought has been 37.3 tonnes on average since the beginning of this century, doubling loss numbers in the 1980’s. In turn, the average of damaged crops has gone up more than 10% to 59.3.

Again, is this alarmist? Perhaps. Beijing Meteorological Bureau chief forecaster Sun Jisong warned that it is possible that increases are dud to better observation and measurement techniques or better methods of recording data. Further, he argued that coping with these rising numbers would entail lower consumption of energy and resources needed to deal with the root causes and creating better systems for defense and forecasgin.

Whether due to increased extreme weather or better observation techniques, climate change is causing serious issues with farmers and crop production. The problem is by no means exclusive to China. All over the world this kind of issue is cropping up, in some areas causing people to leave land they have lived on and worked for generations.

Event the Red Cross is reporting that weather-related disasters have increased over the last ten years by almost twofold. And they, like many others, are saying that these weather disasters will only happen with greater frequency and increased severity.