Climate change slowing China's drive to end poverty

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 17 Jun 09;

BEIJING (Reuters) - Climate change is making some of the poorest people in China even more destitute and undermining the development that has been a cornerstone of Communist rule, academics and campaigners said on Wednesday.

The most poverty-stricken parts of the country are often also the most vulnerable to changing weather patterns, and farmers in these places are already feeling the pinch from floods and drought, a report from Greenpeace and aid group Oxfam said.

"The distribution of poor communities correlates very strongly to that of ecologically fragile areas," prominent economist Hu Angang said in an introduction to the report which looks in detail at three communities which are already badly hit.

One county in southwestern Sichuan is grappling with an increase in torrential rains which have destroyed homes by undermining their foundations and damaged fields.

A second case study looks at a poor corner of southeastern Guangdong province that is troubled by a rise in droughts and flooding -- because when rain does come it is much heavier -- causing crop failure, damage to roads and other problems.

In northwestern Gansu, a third county is suffering from intensified drought that has forced some 34,000 people to leave their homes and left thousands more with limited drinking water.

"The impact of climate change on poor communities is a new phenomenon, a new challenge, in man's fight against poverty," economist Hu said.

The impact on people in areas like these, already grappling with problems like remote location and limited resources, may make it harder for Beijing to continue lifting ordinary Chinese citizens out of poverty, the report said.

"Environmental degradation, drought and increased disaster risk and incidence mean that in the future we will have to deal with more and more people falling back into poverty," it said.

And the government will need to accelerate a shift away from the energy and resource-intensive development that powered much of the poverty reduction of the last three decades, but creates large amounts of the emissions that are perpetuating poverty.

Increased spending on cutting emissions and adapting to global warming could be at least partially offset in savings on disaster relief and reconstruction after events like flooding.

"The whole country's economic development has felt the impact of rising disaster-related costs, which have become the main cause for certain groups becoming trapped by long-term recurring poverty," the report said.

Climate change hits China's 'poor hardest'
Yahoo News 17 Jun 09;

BEIJING (AFP) – Climate change hits China's poor the hardest and also forces some of those lifted out of hardship back into it, activist groups Greenpeace and Oxfam said Wednesday.

The two urged the Chinese government to review its existing poverty alleviation policy to take climate change into account, in a report compiled with experts from the nation's Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

"Climate change is making poverty alleviation work harder... because as soon as there is a disaster in those places where the environment is very fragile, these return to poverty," Xu Yinlong of the academy told reporters.

According to Hu Angang, an economist at Beijing's Tsinghua University who wrote a preface to the report, China is one of the countries in the world most prone to natural disasters.

"More than 70 per cent of Chinese cities and over 50 percent of the population are located in areas susceptible to serious meteorological, seismic or oceanic disasters," he wrote.

And 95 per cent of those living in absolute poverty in China are living in ecologically fragile areas in the interior of the country, the report added, highlighting the correlation between hardship and a weak environment.

These places are now showing signs of climate change, including glacial retreat, an increase in droughts, enhanced soil erosion and frequent extreme weather events.

The report took three areas in China as case studies, including Yangshan county in the generally wealthy southern province of Guangdong.

In Yangshan, rain is falling with increased intensity but in fewer bursts, reducing the availability of water as a resource and leading to floods.

"Yangshan's agricultural production, livelihood and living conditions could further deteriorate," the report said.

Greenpeace and Oxfam urged China to take the lead in adopting a climate rescue treaty at a key meeting on climate change in December, and introduce measures such as elevating bridges and roads in flood-prone areas.