Glacier melt at major sites in western China is accelerating fast, Greenpeace said yesterday, prompting thousands to evacuate in recent months and underscoring the vulnerability to climate change in a “wake-up call” for the world.
Satellite analysis showed that the rate of retreat at glaciers in China’s remote western regions had more than doubled, with the annual rate at the Tianshan Glacier No. 1 in Xinjiang rising from an average of 5,000m2 between 1962 and 1986 to 10,600m2 between 1986 and this year, Greenpeace said.
“This is a wake-up call for China and the world,” Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Liu Junyan said.
“Glaciers in China supply water to 1.8 billion people and they’re melting fast. In just the last few months, thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes due to threats of flooding,” Liu said.
Greenpeace has identified two major disasters caused by glacier melt this year, including the release of 25 million cubic meters of floodwater into the Yarkant River basin that in August forced the evacuation of residents.
Researchers with the China Academy of Sciences in September said that glaciers in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau had shrunk 15 percent as a result of rising temperatures over the past 50 years.
Temperatures in the region are rising faster than the global average, they said.
China has pledged to bring carbon emissions to a peak by “about 2030” as part of its commitment to the 2015 Paris agreement.
The agreement aims to keep the average increase in global temperatures to “well below” 2°C above the historical norm.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last month said in a report that high-altitude zones like the Tibetan plateau would be especially vulnerable if global temperature rises were not restricted to 1.5°C.
Another academy study published last month said that China was at risk of longer and more intense drought, as well as more destructive flooding if global temperature rises were not limited to 1.5°C.
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