Extreme weather highlights urgency of concerted actions: China Daily editorial

Floods, drought and extremely high temperatures have again marked a summer of extreme weather events across China and, as if to drive home the point, a rarely seen tornado swept through the northeastern province of Liaoning on Wednesday, killing six and injuring 190.

Extreme weather is wreaking havoc elsewhere as well — Europe is sweltering in record-breaking temperatures, India is suffering a severe water shortage, and glaciers in Alaska are fast melting. Actually, the planet has experienced its five warmest years on record from 2015 to 2019 with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

But the increasing frequency and extent of extreme temperature events have not been seen before, with growing scientific evidence proving they are inseparably linked with climate change. In the latest climate attribution study designed to determine the likelihood of an extreme weather event, a team of scientists at the World Weather Attribution group concluded that every heat wave occurring in Europe today "is made more likely and more intense by human-induced climate change".

All this points to an urgency with which governments across the world must work together to reverse the trend before it is too late. As United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has lamented, "Climate change is running faster than we are."

Such is the dilemma we now find ourselves in. Although most countries have signed the Paris climate agreement, meant to keep temperatures from increasing 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, very few are actually living up to their commitments under the framework. Not to mention the United States, the world's major emitter of greenhouse gases, which, under the current administration, has announced its withdrawal from the global pact, insisting it will disadvantage its workers and taxpayers.

In contrast, China is actively fighting climate change by embracing sustainable development. It is now well on track, or has even exceeded its climate goals. It already reached its 2020 carbon emissions target three years ahead of schedule, and its pledge to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 is likely to be realized much earlier. And it is important to note that China has maintained robust growth while dealing with climate change.

Climate change is not an abstract theory as some suggest, but a grimly tangible reality that threatens the survival of future generations, as evidenced in the increasing extreme weather events we are suffering today, which threatens to be even more frequent and acute in the future. It is time for nations to consider the price that they will have to pay if the temperature rises unabated, because the price will ultimately prove too heavy for humankind to bear.