report
Status: 08/31/2022 08:15 a.m
China’s largest freshwater lake, the Poyang, has shrunk to a quarter, and the longest river, the Yangtze, is at low water. Farming, shipping and tourism are feeling the effects, but climate change is hardly an issue in everyday life.
It takes about 20 minutes to walk from Lushan City waterfront on the north side of Poyang Lake to Luoxingdun Island. It goes over dry, cracked ground, now and then a dead fish lies on the bottom.
Actually, the island should be completely surrounded by water at this time of year. But for weeks, parts of southern China have had temperatures of over 40 degrees – the longest dry and hot period since weather records began 60 years ago.
“It’s never been like this in my memory. Look at the cracks in the ground,” says Wang Yumei, who came with her daughter and husband from Jiujiang, about a 30-minute drive away.
The island of Luoxingdun in Poyang Lake is otherwise surrounded by water – now it can be reached by car.
Image: EPA
The bottom of the lake becomes a path
Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, has shrunk to a quarter of its original surface area. That’s why the island with a pagoda can now even be reached by car.
This is an attraction for tourists and for people from the area, like the 38-year-old English teacher Wang – she does not see any consequences yet.
The water level in the Yangtze River is also lower than in previous years, she says, and “normal people” aren’t affected yet. Perhaps, she wonders, will this affect the people who make a living from fishing?
First flood, then drought
The drought is already having a major impact on agriculture. At the edge of a rice field, a young farmer stands next to a pipe from which water flows into a dry irrigation canal.
Actually, the rice fields around Lake Poyang should be under water. But it hasn’t rained for a long time and the fields have also dried up, he says: “Now all the families are pumping water onto the fields.” If, as usual, it rained “every few days”, there would be no problem.
Which plants will survive the great drought – a question that this farmer in the province of Jiangxi is also asking himself.
Image: REUTERS
It will be expensive for farmers
A few kilometers away, 65-year-old Wang Lisheng is sitting in a bare living room, plucking cotton that he has grown in his field. His wife is preparing lunch over an open fire in an adjoining room.
Wang also has to use a petrol pump to bring water to his fields, which are otherwise flooded by water from a nearby river. But this has dried up, he says.
Because Wang has to spend money on gasoline to run the pump, he doesn’t expect to earn anything this year: “We simple farmers don’t get any help from the government,” he notes – “only the big farmers get support “.
Wang knows extreme weather of a different kind – two years ago there was a flood in the region, in his house it was up to the roof. This year, Wang also notes, is extremely dry, he hasn’t experienced such a drought in more than 40 years.
Cargo ships hardly loaded
Extreme weather is increasing worldwide – including in China. The effects of this year’s drought on agriculture are not yet foreseeable. But it is likely to become more difficult and more expensive to provide the 1.4 billion people in the People’s Republic with food.
The economy is also suffering: due to water shortages in rivers, many reservoirs are empty and less electricity is generated from hydropower. Electricity has been rationed in Sichuan and Chongqing. Several companies had to reduce production or temporarily stop it altogether. The state and party leadership has announced that coal-fired power plants will be ramped up to compensate for the loss.
The “transport artery” becomes narrower and flatter
The Yangtze River, China’s longest and most important river, can be reached quickly by car from the northern shore of Lake Poyang. Sandbanks can be seen to the left and right.
Again and again islands appear in the middle of the river, which are normally under water. The 6,300-kilometer-long Yangtze River is not only a source of water for people and agriculture, as well as for power generation, but also an important transport artery right through China.
One cargo ship after the next passes the city of Jiujiang day and night on the Yangtze. While ships can still sail here, this is no longer possible in other places due to low water.
The largest cargo ships that sail here have a capacity of 10,000 tons, said Wang Xingzeng, who works on a tourist ship docked in Jiujiang. Now they would have to reduce their loads by a few thousand tons to be able to safely pass through.
The sandbars are growing
The metropolis of Wuhan is about 200 kilometers upstream. At a jetty, passengers are given safety instructions.
In the city where the corona pandemic broke out in 2019, you can take a ferry across the Yangtze for the equivalent of 30 cents. The jetties are completely dry. In the evening sun, thousands of people have gathered on the significantly enlarged sandbanks. Children play in the sand, especially men swim in the river.
Wuhan is growing, and the Yangtze River is the city’s lifeline. Persistent low water hits the metropolis and the economy hard.
Image: VIA REUTERS
Less water every time
Fan Hu came to cross the Yangtze – for the 22nd time this year, says the 40-year-old. Each time the water was a little lower.
Researchers around the world agree: Man-made climate change is to blame for extreme weather events such as droughts. China is the largest emitter of climate-damaging greenhouse gases in the world.
When asked whether the Chinese state and party leadership is doing enough to combat climate change, swimmer Fan Hu reacted a little piqued: The earth belongs to all of humanity, and climate change is not limited to national borders or ethnic groups. And China plants a lot, protects water sources, preserves ecological diversity – that’s the duty of the whole world: “This isn’t about what China isn’t doing well or what the West is doing well. Global warming isn’t a local problem, it’s a problem common.”
In Chonqing, which is traversed by the Jialing tributary of the Yangtze, things are hardly better: people are sitting in a pool of water at dusk.
Image: dpa
Climate change – not an everyday issue
Global warming does not play a major role in the everyday lives of people in China and is only rarely discussed by the state media. The Chinese government does not deny climate change, it is also committed to climate targets internationally, but it also continues to build coal-fired power plants.
In this decade, CO2 emissions in China are expected to increase year by year. Emissions are not expected to decrease until 2030. China wants to be climate neutral by 2060.