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Despite historic rains, little is said about climate change in China

2021-07-23T13:46:09.357Z


Henan was devastated by record rains, but there were few references to climate change among Chinese officials, scientists or state media.


See the devastation left by the floods in China 1:21

Hong Kong (CNN) -

As record heatwaves hit western North America and deadly floods hit Germany, mounting risks associated with climate change made headlines and sparked widespread discussion in the West.

Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent.

And the latest catastrophes are seen as a timely reminder that the threat could strike much closer to home than some might think.

But this week, with much of central China's Henan province devastated by record rains, there were few references to the broader climate crisis among Chinese officials, scientists or state media.

33 dead after heavy rains affecting China 0:40

The silence is all the more conspicuous given how much the Chinese authorities have emphasized the extreme and weirdness of the weather.

At one point, the provincial capital of Zhengzhou received nearly 200 millimeters of rain in an hour.

In just three days, it had 610 millimeters, or nearly a year, of rain, according to the Zhengzhou Weather Station.

The Zhengzhou Weather Station called it a "once in 1,000 years" downpour.

The Henan Department of Water Resources went one step further, claiming that rainfall levels recorded at some stations could only be seen "once every 5,000 years".

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But on Thursday, the Chinese state newspaper Global Times said that Ren Guoyu, a chief expert at the China National Climate Center, "ruled out the connection between heavy rains in Zhengzhou and global climate change."

Instead, he attributed the flood to "abnormal atmospheric circulation on a planetary scale," according to the report.

The incidence of climate change

Liu Junyan, leader of the Greenpeace East Asia Climate and Energy Project, said that without the impact of climate change, "it is very difficult to imagine such extreme rains would occur in an inland city like Zhengzhou."

But in addition, he assured that it is rare that the Chinese meteorological and climate authorities recognize a possible connection with climate change after extreme events, because such analysis requires more research and data.

"As a precaution, they basically avoid talking about it," he said.

State media rarely report on these associations, he added.

Look at the floods that paralyzed central China 1:08

That is in stark contrast to the way climate scientists and the media have responded in the West.

While a comprehensive analysis is needed to confirm the extent to which changes in the earth's climate have affected specific extreme weather events, many experts agree that the trend is clear.

Scientists at the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for example, conducted a rapid attribution analysis, which found that heat waves from western North America would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change.

WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas later said they were "clearly linked" to global warming.

It's not that Chinese leaders don't admit that climate change is real.

On the contrary, President Xi Jinping wants China, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, to become a world leader in the climate crisis.

Last year, it pledged to reach national maximum emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, earning international praise.

The official fear of climate activism

In the official narrative, climate change is often portrayed as a global crisis that China, a "responsible great power," has struggled to resolve, especially when the Trump administration withdrew the United States from that effort.

However, less mention is made of the direct threats it poses to China and its effect on the daily lives of its 1.4 billion people.

G20 countries have yet to reach an agreement on climate change 0:52

Chinese authorities also fear that climate activism popular among young people in the West could spread to China. Last September, 17-year-old Ou Hongyi, known as China's Greta Thunberg, was detained and interrogated for hours by the police. It was after joining the Global Climate Strike in Shanghai, an international event that drew thousands of protesters in more than 3,500 locations around the world.

That has made it difficult for the Chinese public to realize his personal connection to the climate crisis, Liu said.

Like some in the West, the Chinese tend to perceive the dangers of climate change as remote, threatening only the melting of the Arctic ice caps or the low-lying islands of the tropics.

And while emissions cuts and green reforms are often mentioned in state media and in classrooms, many treat them as just one more state policy for local governments to follow.

"For many, climate change is more a matter of politics, economic cost and profit and international collaboration," Liu said.

Lack of preparation for weather events

But as the devastation in Henan shows, many Chinese cities are unprepared to cope with the climatic risks of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather.

In the 18 hours before Tuesday's evening peak, the Zhengzhou Weather Station issued five consecutive red alerts for torrential rains.

According to the guidance of the China Meteorological Administration, the alert should have prompted authorities to stop meetings, suspend classes and business.

However, the Zhengzhou authorities apparently did not pay attention.

They were trapped in a subway flooded 1:12

As the deaths of 12 passengers trapped in a flooded subway gripped the nation, some have questioned why authorities didn't shut it down sooner to avoid casualties.

The situation could be worse in smaller towns and villages around Zhengzhou with less contingency planning, rescue resources and media exposure, Liu said.

The last time Henan saw equally heavy downpours was almost half a century ago.

In 1975, a super typhoon dumped huge amounts of rain on the province.

A village in the center of the storm saw 1,600 millimeters of rain in three days.

The overflowing rivers broke 62 dams, killing more than 26,000 people, according to the official count, although other estimates were several times higher.

Chinese scientists worry about climate change

While the connection between climate change and extreme weather in China may not have received much official mention, it does not mean that Chinese scientists have not been studying the issue.

A senior meteorologist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, for example, has published a paper on the impact of climate change on extreme torrential rains in Chinese megacities.

More than 520,000 hectares have been lost to fires in the US 4:35

Also in Chinese social networks some have begun to reflect on the lack of discussions on the subject.

On Weibo, the heavily censored Chinese version of Twitter, one user said he was disappointed to find "very, very few discussions" about climate change on major social media platforms.

"In Henan, the [disaster] unfolded too quickly in such a short time," he wrote.

"But in other places, it is like boiling a frog in warm water; it may not cause any immediate danger of death, but in the long run, I think it will also affect the way we live and work," he added.

Climate change China

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-07-23

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