Climate Risk and Resilience in China

This book provides a fascinating glimpse into the ways a country with such varying topography, a large population and inconsistent socio-economic development is developing approaches to tackle and respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by a changing climate. Using research and data from the Adapting to Climate Change in China (ACCC) project, the first and largest research-to-policy project of its kind ever attempted in China, Chinese and international scientists have come together to produce cutting-edge regional models, and Chinese policy makers assess future impacts of and vulnerability to climate change. The book also uses interviews with those individuals who have to bear the brunt of climate change to give a more human voice to what has become a political and scientific issue.

China has been subject to floods, droughts and heat waves for millennia; these hazards are not new. What is new is how rapidly climate risks are changing for different groups of people and sectors. This is due to the unprecedented rates of socio-economic development, migration, land-use change, pollution and urbanisation, all occurring alongside increasingly more intense and frequent weather hazards and shifting seasons. China’s leadership is facing a significant challenge – from conducting and integrating biophysical and social vulnerability and risk assessments and connecting the information from these to policy priorities and time frames, to developing and implementing policies and actions at a variety of scales. It is within this challenging context that China’s policy makers, businesses and citizens must manage climate risk and build resilience.

This book provides a detailed study of how China has been working to understand and respond to climatic risk, such as droughts and desertification in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to deadly typhoons in the mega-cities of the Pearl River Delta. Using research and data from a wide range of Chinese sources and the Adapting to Climate Change in China (ACCC) project, a research-to-policy project, this book provides a fascinating glimpse into how China is developing policies and approaches to manage the risks and opportunities presented by climate change.

This book will be of interest to those studying global and Chinese climate change policy, regional food, water and climate risk, and to policy advisors.