China’s temperature rises ‘outpace global average in past 7 decades’
- Trend set to continue as changing weather patterns affect environmental balance, official says
- Coastal water levels reaching new peaks and glacier retreat speeding up
In its annual climate assessment published this week, China’s weather bureau described the country as “a sensitive region in global climate change”, with temperatures rising 0.26 degrees Celsius (0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) a decade since 1951, compared to the global average of 0.15 degrees.
“In the future, the increase in regional average temperatures in China will be significantly higher than the world,” Yuan Jiashuang, vice-director of the National Climate Centre (NCC), said on Wednesday.
He warned that changing weather patterns in China would affect the balance of water resources, make ecosystems more vulnerable and reduce crop yields.
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Going underground to beat the summer heat in parts of China
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned last month that “no nation is immune” to climate change and said the world now had to choose between “collective action or collective suicide”.