Even if countries like China and the United States rapidly cut greenhouse gases, the warming from those already emitted is likely to have long-lasting consequences. It was a tectonic shift in policy and may prove to be one in practice, as well. Xi pledged to speed up reductions in emissions and reach carbon neutrality by 2060. It introduced a pilot program to create “sponge cities,” including Zhengzhou, that better absorb rainfall. The country has nearly quintupled the acreage of green space in its cities over the past two decades. “We must maintain harmony between man and nature and pursue sustainable development,” he said in a speech in Geneva in 2013. Xi promised to build an “ecological civilization” in China. Chan, who is also a visiting fellow at the Research Institute of the University of Leeds.Īs early as 2013, Mr.

“If they had a chance to build a city again, or to plan one, I think they would agree to make it more balanced,” said Mr.

The vast expansion of roads, subways and railways in cities that swelled almost overnight meant there were fewer places where rain could safely be absorbed - disrupting what scientists call the natural hydrological cycle.įaith Chan, a professor of geology with the University of Nottingham in Ningbo in eastern China, said the country’s cities - and there are 93 with populations of more than a million - modernized at a time when Chinese leaders made climate resiliency less of a priority than economic growth. Steven Lee Myers, Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley:Ĭhina has always had floods, but as Kong Feng, then a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, wrote in 2019, the flooding of cities across China in recent years is “a general manifestation of urban problems” in the country. Observations and links welcome.Īs China boomed, it didn’t take climate change into account. Just me, or is it hot in here? I’m on Twitter. You’ll need to click a confirmation link, so no spam.Ī selection of 11 links for you. You can sign up to receive each day’s Start Up post by email. CC-licensed photo by lwicks_2000 on Flickr. Plastic recycling has had some success – but oil companies aren’t helping.

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