KUALA LUMPUR – Economic losses caused by drought in China will rocket to tens of billions of dollars per year if global warming breaches the limits set by governments in a 2015 agreement to tackle climate change, scientists said.
Under the Paris climate pact, almost 200 nations agreed to limit global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, and pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5 C (2.7 F).
The planet has already heated up by about 1 C. An international team of researchers analyzed drought-related losses in 31 Chinese provinces and cities over the last 30 years, and looked at the potential social and economic impacts should global temperatures exceed the Paris limits.
In China, annual economic losses due to drought were an average $7 billion per year between 1984 and 2017, but global warming of 1.5 C could see that figure rise to $47 billion annually, said the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
A global temperature increase of 2 C could see China’s drought losses jump to about $84 billion each year, it added.
Areas that suffered most from drought over the last three decades were located in a southwest to northeast belt, including Inner Mongolia, Hunan, Yunnan, Hubei, Jilin, Anhui, Sichuan, Liaoning, Guizhou and Shandong.
“In this dry zone, there is a lot of poverty,” said Jiang Tong, a co-author of the study and researcher at the National Climate Center of the China Meteorological Administration.
Stepping up efforts to reduce carbon emissions — including cutting down on fossil-fuel use — is important to ensure temperature rise stays below 1.5 C, Jiang said.
Achieving that could reduce China’s annual drought losses by several tens of billions of dollars, he added.
To ease the impacts of drought, authorities can introduce early warning systems, help farmers grow drought-resistant crops and fodder, and improve irrigation systems, he added.