China’s economy is experiencing its worst moment in decades, excluding the exceptional scenario of the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020: the effects of the strict Covid zero policy lockdowns and the crises in the real estate and banking sectors made the Monetary Fund International (IMF) cut its estimate for the country’s GDP growth in 2022 by a quarter – the perspective now is that the increase will be just 3.3%, below the government’s target of 5.5%.
To make this situation worse, high temperatures, droughts and forest fires, which have also affected the United States and Europe, are aggravating this scenario.
China declared a drought emergency for the first time this year. In dozens of cities, temperatures exceed 40ºC and several points on the Yangtze River, the largest in Asia and which crosses the central and southern regions of Chinese territory, are dry.
The situation is so extreme that governments in some provinces, such as Hubei in central China, are shooting silver iodide rods at clouds to induce precipitation – they help form ice crystals for the cloud to produce. more rain.
With hydroelectric reservoirs at low levels, energy rationing measures are being taken: in Sichuan, in southwest China, the lack of rain led local authorities to decree the temporary closure of all factories last week.
The owner of a farm in the same province posted a video on social media that shows several dead birds. She claimed the animals were left without ventilation because the power was cut off due to the high temperatures.
At more than 70 days, the heat wave in China is already the longest since full records began to be made in 1961, according to the National Climate Center, which predicted in a statement that it could increase in intensity in the coming weeks.
This week, residents of Chongqing (southwest China) are being tested for Covid-19 due to an outbreak of the disease and images on Chinese social media showed dozens of people queuing in the hot sun, with some of them fainting from the intense heat. .
The Chinese government estimated that the heat wave caused direct economic losses of $400 million to the Chinese economy in July alone.
Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China, told US broadcaster CNBC that the country’s steel, chemical and fertilizer industries are experiencing a major slowdown in production. “That [onda
de calor] It will affect large energy-intensive industries and will have a knock-on effect on the entire economy and even the global supply chain,” he warned.
Interestingly, while some regions of China are suffering from extreme drought, others are hit by heavy rains, like the city of Xining, in northwest China, where floods left dozens dead and missing last week.
“Following this trend, future extreme heat waves will affect even larger areas and impact more people,” Xiaoming Shi, assistant professor in the environment and sustainability division at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told the New York Times.
“Everyone, from citizens to public managers and companies, must prepare for this new pattern of extreme weather events and guard against the dangers they will pose”, highlighted the expert.
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