Chinese President Xi Jinping calls for greater efforts to fight desertification after climate change leads to spike in dust clouds

The Chinese leader says the country’s policies have been having an effect but warns that a sustained, long-term effort is still needed to fight the problem

More incidents have been recorded in the past couple of years, including major storms that affected vast areas of the country

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A major sandstorm hit Inner Mongolia and other parts of northern China in March. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00pm, 7 Jun 2023

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for a greater effort to tackle desertification as he warned the number of dust clouds hitting the north of the country had increased as a result of climate change.

Xi made the comments during a tour of Inner Mongolia on Monday and Tuesday, saying the country had made remarkable progress in preventing and controlling desertification, but still faced major challenges.

“In the past two years, the number of dusty weather incidents in northern China has increased due to the impact of climate change,” Xi said on Tuesday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

While China’s desertification control work had shown an “overall and accelerated improvement”, he warned large areas were still affected and urged officials to understand that it would need “long-term, arduous, repetitive and uncertain” efforts to tackle the problem.

In the first four months of 2023, there were 11 dust events in northern China – the highest number over the same period in the past decade, Jia Xiaolong, deputy director of the National Climate Centre, said earlier this year.

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