Jia Xiaolong noted that Chinese government has been building up its capacity for disaster mitigation, emergency management, & disaster prevention.
An expert from the China Meteorological Administration predicted at a news conference on Monday that risks associated with extreme weather events will rise as the world climate warms.
The National Climate Center’s deputy director, Jia Xiaolong, stated that “recent analysis from the Center showed that this year, extreme weather events, including heat waves, floods, and drought, will be more likely to occur as the world climate warms, making it more challenging to combat weather-related disasters.”
He predicted that this summer’s persistently high temperatures in southern China will cause energy supply shortages when demand is at its highest. People need to make more of an effort to protect themselves in coastal areas from typhoons.
Residents of the north should take precautions to avoid secondary disasters brought on by torrential rain and flooding, he advised. According to Jia, under the higher emission scenario, severe heat wave events like those in 2013 may occur more frequently in the central and eastern regions of China around the year 2035, possibly twice a year.
He declared, “The risks brought on by heat will increase with stronger intensity.” Extreme drought events are predicted to happen 32 times more frequently by the end of the century than they do now. Additionally, he added, “precipitation tends to lead to more disasters, which shows that climate change is still having a significant impact.”
According to the annual China Climate Bulletin published on Monday by the China Meteorological Administration, the country’s average temperature last year was 10.51 °C, 0.62 °C higher than the average between 1991 and 2020.
The nation as a whole experienced the second-highest average temperature in history last summer, which led to severe flooding and droughts and the strongest heat wave to hit central and eastern China since 1961, according to the bulletin.
Global warming is primarily caused by human activities that release greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, according to Jia. According to him, households account for about 67 percent of global emissions, and altering consumption habits can significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions.
He also noted that the Chinese government has been building up its capacity for disaster mitigation, emergency management, and disaster prevention.