New York, London could ‘show China the way’ to a climate-proof future

The China Environment News article by Yang Pingjian, a researcher at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Science, comes as the country encounters yet another summer of severe weather, with the south reeling under deadly floods and drought-like conditions gripping the central and northern provinces.

Yang said China needed to replan its cities and rural areas to cope with climate change, and learn from cities around the world that have rebuilt their facilities to adapt to the evolving conditions.

“In the past, the main urban infrastructure such as water and power networks, and flood control, were designed based on long-term average meteorological data with some additional safety margins,” he said.

“But extreme weather has changed the underlying logic of urban and rural planning and design.”

“In cities with an average annual precipitation of 400mm, climate adaptation planning is needed to address the flood risks caused by hundreds of millimetres of rainfall over tens of hours, which have occurred multiple times,” Yang said, citing the experiences of London and New York.