China and climate change

China is the world’s second most populous country. It has a well integrated and extensive industrial manufacturing economy and is considered by most observers to be the global leader in greenhouse gas emissions. It is impacted by climate change in diverse ways, which include heatwaves, droughts, floods and typhoons, which are sometimes called hurricanes or cyclones in other regions of the world.

Global Times, a Chinese publication, reporting on July 6, 2025, stated that “China is battling intense heatwaves across multiple regions in recent days, with temperatures surpassing 40 C in some areas…the high temperatures also pushed electricity demand to historical levels, prompting emergency measures to stabilize power grids.” 40C (Degree Celsius) is equivalent to 104 Degrees Fahrenheit. To demonstrate the vast scope of the intense heat, Global Times claims, “east China’s Shandong Province, central China’s Henan Province and Shanghai, temperatures rose to 37-39 C. Meanwhile, in the Turpan-Hami basin in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as well as other areas, temperatures surpassed 40 C.”

Publishing on August 7, 2024, Reuters demonstrated the nature of the intense heat that was consuming China at the time, “extreme heat baked megacities on the eastern Chinese seaboard and sharply pushed up demand for power to cool homes and offices, while scorching temperatures in China’s interior stoked fears of damage to rice crops.” It also quoted local officials as saying, “the megacity of Hangzhou, home of 12.5 million people and some of China’s largest companies, banned all non-essential outdoor lighting and light shows this week to conserve energy as extreme heat tested power grids.” Hangzhou, it reported, experienced temperatures higher than 40 C the previous Friday and regarding Shanghai, China’s principal economic hub, it says “the maximum load, or demand, on its power grid exceeded 40 million kilowatts for the first time since August 2 as heatwaves boosted electricity consumption in the city of nearly 25 million people.”

With the heatwaves, droughts have become a regular feature of China’s climate change experience. Writing on June 4, 2025, Reuters shows that drought has had an impact on that year’s wheat production, “parts of China’s wheat belt in Shaanxi and Henan provinces have been hit hard by hot, dry weather, with the sun baking the soil into cracked slabs and scorching the wheat before it could ripen.” It also says that, “Last month, Shaanxi recorded its highest average temperatures since records began in 1961.” Losses to some farmers were considered significant, “While official figures are still some six weeks away, more than a dozen farmers in the area and those they hire to harvest the crop told Reuters of losses and small harvests, down as much as half for some.”

In 2024, Reuters again addressed China’s drought situation. Writing on June 13, it says, “weeks of scarce rainfall in parts of China, coupled with sweltering heat, has brought drought to several provinces, prompting alerts and actions from authorities to minimise the impact on agriculture, and water and energy supplies.” It terms of the actual Government’s response, it states, “China’s agriculture ministry said on Thursday that searing temperatures have adversely impacted summer planting and that fighting drought and protecting summer planting were arduous tasks. The ministry has sent several work groups to seven provinces to offer guidance in the fight against drought.” With mounting water scarcity in some areas, officials from the government’s ministry of water also sent officials to offer specialized assistance to areas like “Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong provinces”, areas in the north and north east of the country that are the foundations of the nation’s agricultural production. In other words, this region is the ‘bread basket’ of the country, it produces the overwhelming majority of the food it consumes, like wheat, rice, vegetables, potatoes, grains, fruits, poultry, eggs and pork, among other things. The reliability of this region’s food production is even more important given the size of the country’s population, which is believed to be approximately 1.4 billion people, and the demand for the high volume of food that this creates.

Following the droughts and heatwaves in early June and July 2025, parts of China began to experience extreme rainfalls and floods by late July, which most seriously affected the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and their adjoining province of Hebei in the northeast corridor of the country. Gathering information from local Chinese news reports, the charity organization Give2Asia states, “from July 23 to 28, [2025], a six-day extreme rainfall event dropped approximately 40% of Beijing’s annual average rainfall (165.9 mm city-wide; 543.4 mm in Miyun) over Beijing and the surrounding Tianjin and Hebei provinces.” It also states that, “as of July 29, authorities have confirmed 34 fatalities—30 in Beijing (28 Miyun, 2 Yanqing) and 4 in Hebei (Chengde landslide) [and] Eight people remain missing (Chengde),” and that “The National Commission for Disaster Reduction activated a Level-IV emergency response; Beijing upgraded to Level-I, Hebei to Level-II [and] Tianjin issued a red rain alert.” Give2asia also states that in the Hebei city of Chengde “landslide buried Nan-Taizi-Xigou Village, cutting roads, power, and telecoms”. Note that although the cities of Beijing and Tianjin seem to be geographically part of the province of Hebei, they are actually not, officially they are separately administered entities. Tianjin is a port city just a few miles south of the capital Beijing that handles the area’s seaborn commercial activities However, the three areas are otherwise blended and constitute a major political and economic hub. The Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei integrated zone has a collective population size of about 100 million, climate change induced events have caused major social and economic disruptions in the area.

Floods also caused havoc in China in 2024 and the financial cost was, as usual, very high. In a June 26, 2024 article Reuters reports that “China has provided more than 2.3 billion yuan ($316.4 million) in funds to help with rescue efforts, emergency supplies and planning as deadly floods and landslides caused by almost two weeks of torrential rain ravage several parts of the country.” Some of the provinces that received funding, it quoted a local news outlet as saying, were Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Guangdong, and Guangxi region. Reuters says “dozens of people have died from floods or rain-induced landslides during the annual flooding season, with southern China getting hit particularly hard this year.”

China, especially southern China, has a long history of typhoon experience. Note that there is no substantive difference among typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones, they are all powerful storms. Generally speaking, in Asia they are called typhoons, in the Caribbean and United States region they are called hurricanes and in the South Pacific Ocean region they are referred to as cyclones. The latest typhoon to hit China occurred on September 24, 2025. The Cyclone landed in China after creating havoc in the Hong Kong, Tiawan, Philippines, Vietnam and Laos. According to Britannica.com the “Super typhoon Ragasa…made landfall in southern China at the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province on September 24. Guangdong province and Hong Kong prepared for the storm by closing schools, suspending flights, and issuing severe storm alerts,” and that “about two million people were evacuated from the densely populated Guangdong province in anticipation of landfall.” The winds were devastating, according to Britannica.com the “Chinese coast witnessed high outer wind speeds, including the city of Zhuhai, which was battered with winds of about 132 miles (212 km) per hour, and Taishan county, which experienced top wind speeds of about 150 miles (241 km) per hour on September 24.”

In 2024 typhoon Gaemi brought disaster to China’s Hunan province in late July and according to Eos.org, an American Geophysical union news outlet, there were thousands of landslides and “128,000 people were affected, with 1,714 houses being destroyed and 65 people killed.” Describing the intensity of the event is states “during Typhoon Gaemi, Zixing County averaged 412.7 mm of rainfall, but one weather station recorded 673.9 mm. The maximum 24 hour rainfall was 642.5 mm; the previous record 24 hour rainfall in Hunan Province was 365.4 mm. Thus, this event broke the record to an extraordinary degree. In a landscape with many slopes, multiple landslides were inevitable.”

According to Ember-Energy, China is driving the world’s energy revolution, “China’s surge in renewables and whole-economy electrification is rapidly reshaping energy choices for the rest of the world, creating the conditions for a decline in global fossil fuel use.” It also says that ‘Clean generation growth led by solar and wind met 84% of China’s electricity demand growth in 2024.” According to Ember-Energy from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2025 investment in ‘battery storage’ in China increased 69% and in 2025 China represents 31% of all the ‘clean energy investment’ in the world. Another important finding by Ember-Energy is that in the year 2000, China was responsible for just 5% of ‘global clean energy patent applications,’ but in 2025 the percentage skyrocketed to 75%. Writing in Ember-Energy website Dr Suwit Khunkitti, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand says, “Through scale, innovation and long-term planning, China is demonstrating that decarbonisation can go hand in hand with industrial upgrading, job creation and improved quality of life. These lessons carry significance not only for China, but for the broader region – especially Southeast Asia, where energy demand is rising and development needs remain pressing.”

The adoption of electric vehicles (EV’s) manufacturing and use in China have been vibrant and China has gone on to dominate EV sales globally. According to the Center for European Policy Analysis, CEPA, globally “China dominates the entire EV supply chain — from mineral mining to battery development, car manufacturing, operating software development and even car shipping.” EV now represents a significant part of China’s manufacturing and economic base and it has not happened overnight, as CEPA states, “China has spent the past two decades building an end-to-end EV ecosystem. Six of the world’s top 10 EV manufacturers are Chinese, including BYD, which has overtaken Tesla as the world’s largest EV seller. China now produces over 60% of all electric vehicles globally, and its domestic market accounts for more than half of global EV sales.”

China is also the world’s largest manufacturer of batteries, which are essential components of EV’s. CEPA claims that “Chinese firms CATL and BYD control almost half of global battery production, with CATL’s market share around 37.9% and BYD at 17.2%. China produces over 75% of the world’s lithium-ion battery cells, about 70% of cathodes, and 85% of anodes, two critical battery components. This battery production advantage allows Chinese companies to offer EVs at dramatically lower prices than their American and European rivals.” China is also the world’s leader in the processing of other vital elements for EV battery production, “it processes around 60% of the world’s lithium and 70% of cobalt, the minerals which make up the backbone of modern batteries.” China’s achievement in EV manufacturing must be appreciated, because its in keeping with a fundamental requirement of the Paris Agreement, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally. The Paris Agreement argues that greenhouse gasses are responsible for climate change, and it encourages the world to ungently move away from the use of fossil fuels and towards the use of renewable energies. Road transportation that use oil and Gas (fossil fuels), are responsible for a huge portion of the greenhouse gas that is emitted into the world’s atmosphere. It’s in the interest of the planet that Ev’s (renewable energy vehicles) continue to proliferate.

Concerning China’s dominance in the EV market, some observers may interject issues like market share or economic sector unfair dominance by China, but immediate global greenhouse gas reduction is more significant than those issues and it should not be allowed to be hampered by economic or political squabbles.