Intense heatwave aggravates China's economic woes

HONG KONG • Faced with China's most searing heatwave in six decades, factories in the country's south-west are being forced to close. A severe drought has shrunk rivers, disrupting the region's supply of water and hydropower, and prompting officials to limit electricity to businesses and homes.

In two cities, office buildings were told to shut off the air-con to spare an overextended electrical grid. Elsewhere in the south, local officials urged residents and businesses to conserve energy.

The rolling blackouts and factory shutdowns, which hit Toyota and Foxconn, a supplier for Apple, point to the ways that extreme weather is adding to China's economic woes.

The economy has been headed towards its slowest pace of growth in years, dragged down by China's stringent Covid-19 policy of lockdowns, quarantines and travel restrictions, while consumers tightened their spending and factories produced less. Youth unemployment has hit a record high, while trouble in the real estate sector has set off an unusual surge of public discontent.

Now, China is also facing a heatwave that has swept across the nation for more than two months, with temperatures often exceeding 40 deg C. And the heatwave is forecast to persist for at least another week, according to statistics from the official China Meteorological Centre.

The intense heat is also expected to significantly cut the size of China's rice harvest as it has caused long periods of drought, drying up rice paddies that are irrigated by rain, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

The weather is affecting other crops as well. In the eastern city of Hangzhou, tea farmers have covered their crops with nets to shield them from the heat.

Humans are not the only ones stressed by the heat.

Pandas in zoos lay on sheets of melting ice. Pigs being transported by truck in the south-western city of Chongqing became dehydrated, prompting firefighters to hose them down. Chickens rejected their feed and struggled to lay eggs, causing egg prices to surge, according to state media.

Mr Li Xinyi, owner of a chicken farm in the eastern city of Hefei, said he had installed a large fan in his henhouse but was still getting fewer eggs than usual.

In Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in south-western China with around 20 million people, the heat has been compounded by a severe drought, parching 51 rivers and 24 reservoirs and disrupting the water supply of more than 300,000 residents.

Several other provinces are also experiencing droughts that are expected to worsen in the coming weeks.

With scant rainfall, the Yangtze River, the world's third-longest river, has receded to a record low, with water levels falling by about 5m to 6m compared with the same period last year.

Climate scientists said the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events will increase in the next few decades, given the slow reduction in greenhouse gas emissions globally.

Even as parts of China were parched with drought, other areas saw heavy rainfall - including in Xining, a north-western city, where flash floods on Thursday killed 16 people and left 36 missing, state media reported.

"Following this trend, future extreme heatwaves will affect even larger areas and impact more population," said Assistant Professor Shi Xiaoming at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's environment and sustainability division.

"Everyone, from individuals to city governors and developers, should prepare for the new norm of extremes and be aware that those new extreme events can be dangerous," he added.

NYTIMES