Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
Towns and farmlands inundated by floods, homes and roads buried by landslides, crops withering under scorching heat, hazmat-suited Covid workers collapsing from heatstroke.
Since summer began, scenes of devastation and misery have been playing out across China as the world’s most populous nation grapples with an unrelenting torrent of extreme weather emergencies.
Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent. Now, like much of the world, China is reeling from its impact.
Since the country’s rainy season started in May, heavy rainstorms have brought severe flooding and landslides to large swathes of southern China, killing dozens of people, displacing millions and causing economic losses running into billions of yuan.
In June, extreme rainfall broke “historical records” in coastal Fujian province, and parts of Gu