HONG KONG — Auto assembly and electronics factories in southwestern China have closed due to power shortages. Electric vehicle owners wait overnight at charging stations to charge their vehicles. The river level is too low for ships to carry supplies any longer.
A record drought and 11 weeks of heat waves have caused widespread disruption in a region that relies on dams for more than three-quarters of its electricity generation. Factory closures and logistics delays hamper China’s efforts to revive its economy as Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepares to claim his third term in office this fall. I’m here.
The ruling Communist Party is already struggling to reverse an economic slowdown in China, the world’s second-largest economy, with the country’s tough coronavirus lockdown and a slump in the property market. Young people are finding it difficult to find work, while uncertainty over the economic outlook has forced residents to save instead of spend and hold back from buying new homes.
Now, extreme heat is adding to our frustration by roaring power supplies, threatening crops and causing wildfires. Reducing electricity from hydroelectric dams has led China to burn more coal, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to air pollution and global warming.
Many cities across the country have been forced to implement rolling blackouts and restrictions on energy usage. In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, several areas experienced blackouts of more than 10 hours a day.
Chengdu resident Vera Wang said her boyfriend waited in long lines overnight at a partially operational charging station just to charge his electric car. I got to the front row at 4am.
“The line was very long, stretching from the underground parking lot to the street outside,” she said.
A heat wave scorched China for more than two months, spreading from the southwestern province of Sichuan to the country’s east coast, with mercury exceeding 104 degrees Celsius on many days. In Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in the southwest with a population of about 20 million, temperatures soared to 113 degrees Celsius last week. It is the first recorded in a Chinese city outside the desert region of western Xinjiang.
The scorching heat has sparked wildfires in the mountains and forests outside Chongqing, with thousands of firefighters and volunteers working to put them out. Residents said the air smelled of pungent smoke.
The drought has dried up dozens of rivers and reservoirs in the region, halved Sichuan’s hydroelectric capacity and hit industrial production. Volkswagen has closed its sprawling 6,000-employee factory in Chengdu for the past week and a half, and Toyota has also temporarily suspended operations at its assembly plant.
Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn and CATL, the world’s largest electric vehicle battery maker, have cut production at nearby factories.
In Ezhou, a city in central China near Wuhan, the Yangtze River is now at its lowest level during this period since record-keeping began in 1865. The People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Communist Party, reported on August 19. The Yangtze River has dropped to the same average water level it normally reaches at the end of the dry winter season.
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But the turmoil from the hydropower shortage is being felt far from the southwest, including in the eastern China cities that are hydropower buyers. Electricity is being distributed to some factories and commercial buildings in cities such as Hangzhou and Shanghai.
Kevin Nee, an online marketing worker in Hangzhou, said his office was stuffy because air conditioners were rarely allowed to run.
“We have to eat ice pops and drink ice drinks,” he said.
Lowering water levels in major rivers that serve the region’s major transportation hubs are also causing delays elsewhere in the supply chain. The Yangtze River retreated so much that many ocean-going ships were unable to reach the upstream ports. The upper Yangtze Basin typically receives half of its annual rainfall in July and August alone, so this year’s lack of rainfall could mean it takes a long time to get more water.
As a result, China has been forced to divert a large number of trucks to carry cargo. On one ship he may need 500 or more trucks to carry the cargo.
Even Rogers Pay, food and agriculture analyst at Beijing-based consulting firm Trivium, said:
Heatwaves and droughts are starting to drive up food prices in China, especially fruits and vegetables. Farmers’ fields and orchards are wilting. Sichuan is China’s leading producer of apples, plums and other fruit, and when the fruit trees die, it can take him five years to grow back. The price of bok choy, a popular cabbage, has nearly doubled in Wuhan this month.
“It will create more economic pain, which the leadership doesn’t want to see,” Pei said.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and four other departments emergency call Drought posed a “serious threat” to China’s fall harvest, it warned Tuesday. China’s cabinet on Wednesday approved $1.5 billion for disaster relief and assistance to rice farmers, and another $1.5 billion for overall agricultural subsidies.
the government urged local officials Find more water sources, support farmers with more electricity, and encourage planting of highly perishable leafy greens in big cities. Fire trucks have been used to water fields and deliver water to pig farms.
The extreme weather sweeping across China could also affect global efforts to stem climate change. The Chinese government has sought to make up for at least some of the hydropower lost to the drought by increasing the use of coal-fired power plants. China’s domestic coal mining is at or near record levels, and imports of coal from Russia hit a record high last month, according to customs data.
But China’s reliance on fossil fuels calls into question China’s efforts to slow the growth of its carbon footprint.
Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an environmental group in Beijing, said: “There is a very painful perception in China that in the short term, only coal can serve as the basis for power supply. ‘ said. For years, Sichuan has attracted energy-intensive industries such as chemical manufacturing with very low electricity prices, he said.
However, Ma was optimistic about the direction of China’s climate strategy, saying that in the medium term, “China is very committed to carbon targets and renewable energy.”
Governments have tried to mitigate the impact of global warming on the economy. China’s top economic planning ministry, the National Development and Reform Commission, set up a working group last winter to analyze the impact of climate change on water-related industries such as hydropower dams.
Ed Cunningham, director of the Asian Energy and Sustainability Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, said such efforts could help maintain the viability of China’s renewable energy plans, but it’s not clear that China will continue to do so. He said it may not be a quick fix to limit coal burning this year. .
“They are much more comfortable with coal,” said Cunningham, “and they actually use coal when they run out of water power.”
Mui Xiao contributed to the report.