- UN warns of rising sea levels
- CP series: from rebels to adapted elite
- Interview with John Lee on semiconductor shortage
- Tibet’s exiled president wants to talk to China
- MPs demand asylum for Hong Kong citizens
- Taiwan: Beijing blocks BioNTech deal
- China now exports more to UK than Germany
- Heads: Markus Duesmann from Audi
Germany is noticeably affected by climate change. But that’s nothing compared to what China faces. A UN report warns of ever higher temperatures on the planet, expanding deserts and rising sea levels. In our Feature of the consequences for China, we pay particular attention to coastal economic centers. Guangzhou and Hong Kong, Shanghai and Ningbo are at risk of flooding. Nico Beckert describes what the government plans to do about it.
The Chinese Communist Party was once formed as a group of the country’s most rebellious minds. It cultivates the myth of this first generation of persecuted comrades and presents them to the youth as role models. Yet the party fears nothing as much as rebellious, defiant characters who might strive for revolution. Today, it’s mainly careerist types who join the CP, writes Felix Lee in the new part of our series on the anniversary of the party’s founding. It has become an elite organization.
What started as a supply chain glitch has now become a veritable semiconductor drama. Car manufacturers are still waiting far too long for the chips they need for their products. In an interview, Merics expert John Lee explains why the industry was not better prepared – and how Germany can make its supply chains more robust.
Finn Mayer-Kuckuk
Feature
Climate change: Shanghai could sink into sea
In a new forecast, the United Nations (UN) issued an urgent warning about the consequences of climate change and the rise in temperature. In one of the next five years, the value of 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial level could be reached. The international community had actually aimed to limit the temperature rise to well below two degrees by the end of the century and ideally to reach the 1.5-degree mark. This target can hardly be achieved.
The United Nations is issuing an urgent warning about the consequences. “Higher temperatures mean greater ice melt, higher sea levels, more heat waves, as well as greater consequences for food security, health, the environment, and sustainable development,” says Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization. For China, temperature records and rising sea levels have dramatic consequences – as Shanghai is considered the most vulnerable city in the world to rising sea levels. With a temperature rise of two degrees, a good 40 percent of the population is threatened by floods.
The metropolitan region of the Pearl River Delta is particularly at risk. At the same time, the Gobi Desert has been expanding for years. Not least against this background, Xi Jinping presented ambitious climate targets in September 2020: China should peak its carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. The new UN data make a faster reduction of climate-damaging greenhouse gases necessary, Taalas urges all countries.
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