Issues around climate change have aroused international attention recently, which continuously reverberate across the globe. China, an old-line country, suffered a lot in the winter 2008 from climate change. The devastating snow storm was reported as the heaviest in the recent 50 years(Lai,2008). During this natural disaster, China's transport and energy systems were severely damaged, causing "hundreds of thousands of people stranded during the peak travel season"(McGregor,2008). The power grid of Chenzhou City, Hunan Province in southern China, was completely down in this snow storm. According to the Civil Administration Department of China, the direct economic loss was 31.1million dollars, and 25 million people were affected(McGregor,2008). From this point, snow is no longer scenery in winter, but a symptom of a disaster resulting from climate change. Moreover, other potential effects of climate change are also radically serious.

Firstly, bio-diversity in China is being severely affected by the climate change. IPCC (Wikipedia) has published many articles on the relationship between climate change and ecosystems, which reveal species' consistent responses to warming trends. In the trend of global warming, some certain kinds of cold-tolerant animals and plants are already in danger and more are under threat, while the majority of insects and bacteria are in prevalence in higher temperature. This situation will surely lead to a bio-disaster if nothing is done, especially in China, whose bio-diversity has already become quite vulnerable after a long time of large scale exploitation. According to Bhatti (2005), the number of mosquitoes is in a rising trend annually, while its natural enemies, like frogs and swallows are declining. If this trend continues, China will pay a lot more to deal with it later.

Secondly, climate change may contribute a lot to sandy desertification in China. As predicted in 2001(He,2001), the temperature in a majority of places in China will rise by around 1 degree, amount of precipitation will drop by 5 percent, and the main trend of the climate in China will be dry during next ten years. Less rainfall and higher temperature will certainly accelerate the land desertification, which was started by overwhelming logging and destruction of plants and forests. According to the data collected by Land and Resources Bureau of China (He,2001), the sandy land, originally 6.67million square kilometer, almost doubled in 1985, and now, it is estimated to spread at 5 square kilometer per day. These statistics may sound surprising, but if a person walks around China, he or she will be astonished, that some rivers are drying up, lands become bald, even the "golden farm land" in the west Chengdu now has lost its fertility and moisture, becoming too hard to grow any plant. In all, if the Chinese government does not make real effort to fight, climate change will soon drive the whole green lands to desert.

Last but not least, the huge financial losses are also the worst effects caused by climate change. Xinhua news agency published a report about the Chinese government dealing with land desertification. It said that 30million dollars are put in every year, but it is far from enough. Take the snow storm this winter as an example: hundreds of millions of dollars are used to rescue people and repair the broken facilities, but the indirect financial loss is uncountable. Compared with the circumstances 20 years before, millions of kilowatts of electricity are consumed to warm up the cold areas and cool the hot areas. Furthermore, according to He(2001), the source of Yangtze river is drying up, the volume of water has decreased by 20%, and the lakes along the rivers have shrunk back about hundreds of meters. If this trend is not stopped, the past investment on the billions-dollars worth Three Gorges Dam will be wasted.

From what have been illustrated above, an obvious conclusion can be drawn that the potential bad effects related from climate change are devastating to China. Efforts should be made immediately. Otherwise, much will have to be paid to maintain it as a place to live.

Reference:
Lai, Y.(2008,January 23). Snow storm. Retrieved March 12 ,2008, from: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-01-23/191213313334s.shtml

McGregor, R.(2008, January 29). Snow storm brings China to a halt. Retrieved
March 12, 2008, from: http://www.ftchinese.com/sc/story_english.jspid=001017034

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.(2001).Wikipedia. retrieved March
12, 2008,from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC

Bhatti,J.S. , Lal, R., Apps, M. J., Price, M. A.(eds). (2005).America climate
change and managed ecosystems. America: CRC press.

He. Q.C(2001). Climate change and sandy desertification combating in China.
News paper of peking forest university,05-2001