Adapting to climate change in China

29 September 2009

The UK is intensifying its work with Beijing on combating the dangers posed to China by climate change, with this month’s launch of a ground-breaking research initiative.

The three year project will include studies on climate change’s impact on health, such as the potential spread of malaria and dengue fever, as well as the effects of extreme weather events such as floods and typhoons. It will also examine China’s agricultural sector  and farming techniques from a climate change perspective.

The launch comes as preparations for December’s Copenhagen summit on climate change gather pace. The summit will look at ways to help countries adapt to climate change, as well as negotiate a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol on global greenhouse gas emissions. China and India, as the world’s most populous nations, as well as among its fastest developing, are crucial to both efforts. Kyoto was compromised by its failure to include developing countries. Research to date suggests that climate change could cause significant reductions in crop yields in China, impacting the country’s food security.

The Adapting to Climate Change in China project builds on an earlier seven year UK-backed initiative that examined the impacts of global warming on agriculture only.

“Climate change adaptation is a new and urgent challenge. DFID sees adaptation as one of the top priorities for developing countries around the world. [Research] is already showing that there could be significant reductions [in China] in yields of wheat, rice and maize, even with the anticipated improvements in agricultural technologies,” said Mark Lowcock, DFID Director General at the project’s launch in Beijing in late September. “And significantly, and worryingly, this work also revealed that many farmers are having to cope right now with a rapidly changing climate.”

The new initiative is a three way collaboration involving China, the UK and Switzerland. It will be administered by the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s lead on climate change, and DFID. The UK is providing £3 million in financing with the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation contributing a further £1.8 million.

It aims to improve development of climate change science in China and raise awareness of the need to factor in climate change to broader government policy.

“Adapting to climate change will not be easy,” Director General Lowcock added.  “It is not an exact science.  Climate predictions can only tell us how likely things will happen rather than exactly what will happen in the future.  But we need to improve climate science and information so that individuals, communities and governments can make the most informed decisions possible.”

DFID is also supporting a “Low Carbon Task Force" within a key advisory body to the Chinese leadership and working closely with the World Bank to help China access new funds such as the Clean Technology Fund. The latter is a new, multilateral source of low interest loans for energy efficiency and low carbon development.