China blamed global warming on Wednesday for this year’s weather extremes, which have led to more than 700 deaths from flooding and left millions of others without water.
Such extremes are likely to get worse and more common in the future, said Song Lianchun, head of the China Meteorological Administration’s department of forecasting services and disaster mitigation.
”It should be said that one of the reasons for the weather extremes this year has been unusual atmospheric circulation bought about by global warming,” Song told a news conference carried live on the central government website.
”These kind of extremes will become more frequent, and more obvious. This has already been borne out by the facts,” he said. ”I think the impact on our country will definitely be very large.”
Some parts of China have had too much rain, and others too little this summer.
In the southern provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi, about two million people are facing drought and temperatures topping out at about 40 degrees Celsius, which have also strained power grids.
Meanwhile, storms in the northern province of Shanxi have killed more than 20 people and destroyed more than 4 000 homes. In one county of the province, it rained for 36 hours non-stop starting from Saturday evening.
Another 26 died and 26 were missing in the neighbouring province of Shaanxi after rainstorms over the past few days, while 21 were killed and 61 were missing in central Henan, Xinhua news agency said.
In Henan’s Lushi County, the hardest hit, 18 people died, it said.
China is rapidly overtaking the United States to become the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases. It is under rising international pressure to accept mandatory caps on carbon-dioxide emissions from its factories and vehicles.
China has refused to comply, but the government has shown greater efforts in addressing energy and environment issues.
Beijing also argues that unless the United States is made to cap its carbon emissions, it will not follow suit. — Reuters