China says poorly prepared to fight impact of climate change

Reuters: China is poorly prepared to tackle the impact of climate change that presents a serious threat to the country, thanks to a lack of planning and public awareness, the government said on Monday. The world's most populous country already faces challenges from weather extremes, with 2,000 people dying on average each year since the 1990s in natural disasters that are set to get worse, China's powerful economic planning agency said.

"Our country is a developing nation with a large population, complex climate conditions and a weak environment (situation)," the National Development and Reform Commission said in a report. "Climate change is already a serious threat to food, water, ecological and energy security, and to people's lives and property," it added. "The mission to deal with climate change is very arduous, but knowledge in society and ability to do this are weak across the board."

China is seeing more droughts in its northern region, with typhoons arriving earlier, wetlands drying up and sea levels rising, said the document, published in coordination with several ministries, including the Agriculture Ministry.

"In the future the rising trend of temperatures will become even more obvious, there will be even more unfavourable impacts (from climate change), and if effective measures are not taken the losses from disasters caused by extreme weather will be even more serious," the agency added....

A NASA image of a vast alluvial fan blossoms across the desolate landscape between the Kunlun and Altun mountain ranges that form the southern border of the Taklimakan Desert in China’s XinJiang Province. The left side is the active part of the fan, and appears blue from water currently flowing in the many small streams. The image was acquired May 2, 2002,