Society

Extreme weather calls for efforts to combat climate change

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-24 11:32

BEIJING: Extreme weather has ravaged across the globe since earlier this year, with snowstorms, floods and droughts hitting the north and south hemispheres at an ever frequent pace, repeating alerts against climate woes.

As of Tuesday, the 60th World Meteorological Day, almost 20 million Chinese people have been left thirsty amid a once-in-a-century drought in the country's southwestern regions, with economic losses standing at 19 billion yuan ($2.8 billion).

Snowstorms slammed the Republic of Korea, India, west Europe and the United States from the beginning of January, leaving hundreds of people dead, transportation systems collapsed and schools suspended.

The US Federal Reserves said the harsh snowstorms in some cities in February even hurt the nation's fragile economic recovery.

While the north hemisphere was suffering freezing weather, flood havoced the south hemisphere, damaging homes and claiming hundreds of lives in Australia, Brazil, and Kenya.

Specialists believed the extreme weather has close connection with global warming.

Yan Hong, vice secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua in January, the chilly weather does not mean that the trend of global warming has been reversed. Such extremes are likely to increase when the globe's meteorological system fail to maintain a balance.

Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration, said the rare drought in China's southwestern areas signals a rising incidence of extreme weather against the backdrop of global warming.

Qin Dahe, a well-known meteorologist in China, said extreme weather results from various factors and climate change is a possible reason.

Climate-related natural disasters have climbed from less than 50 a year in the 1950s to a range between 350 and 450 a year in the 2000s. In 2009, extreme weather events affected 55 million people around the world, according to figures released by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

The extreme weather highlighted the need for concerted efforts to address climate challenges. However, major economies' clashes at the Copenhagen conference last year exposed their pursuit of self-interests.

The developed economies failed to take into account developing countries' right of development when they demanded "all countries' commitments or actions be legally binding."

If only the developed nations learn to compromise their narrow self-interests, there is hope that more progress would be made at the climate talk to be held in Mexico at the end of this year.