Climate change is having major effects on the Chinese economy, society and the environment. The People's Republic of China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, through an energy infrastructure heavily focused on coal. China's per capita emissions are greater than the world and European Union averages but less than Australia, Canada, and the U.S. China recorded its hottest year on record in 2025, with an annual average temperature of . On the basis of cumulative emissions measured from 1751 through to 2017, China is responsible for 13% of global and about half of the United States' cumulative emissions. According to the Carbon Majors Database, Chinese state coal production alone accounts for 14% of historical global emissions.
A burgeoning construction industry and industrial manufacturing contribute heavily to carbon emissions. It has also been noted that higher-income countries have outsourced emissions-intensive industries to China.
China is suffering from the negative effects of global warming in agriculture, forestry and water resources, and is expected to continue to see increased impacts. China's government is taking some measures to increase renewable energy, and other decarbonization efforts, vowing to hit peak emissions before 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060 by adopting "more vigorous policies and measures." In 2022, China's GHG emissions were expected to peak in 2025 and return to 2022 levels by 2030. However, such a pathway will still lead to a 3 degrees Celsius temperature rise.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Impacts on the natural environment
The natural environment of China faces risks from climate change in the form of heat waves, more severe and frequent storms, droughts, floods, and sea level rise. The summer of 2022 saw a heat wave lasting more than nine weeks, flooding in the Pearl River Basin, and drought so severe that certain areas of the Yangtze river were lower than ever recorded before. Between 1980 and 2012, sea levels off the coast of eastern China rose 3.5 inches (9.3 centimeters).
Temperature and weather changes
There has also been an increased occurrence of climate-related disasters such as droughts and floods, and the impact is growing. These events have grave consequences for productivity when they occur, and also create serious repercussions for the natural environment and infrastructure. This threatens the lives of billions and aggravates poverty.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened in 2012, China has prioritized its response to climate change.
A study published in 2017, using continuous and coherent severe weather reports from over 500 staffed stations from 1961 to 2010, found a significant decreasing trend in severe weather occurrence across China, with the total number of severe weather days that have either thunderstorms, hail and/or damaging wind decreasing about 50% from 1961 to 2010. The reduction in severe weather occurrences correlated strongly with the weakening of the East Asian summer monsoon.
China observed a ground average temperature increase of per decade from 1951 to 2017, exceeding the global rate. The average precipitation of China was in 2017, 1.8% more than the average precipitation of previous years. There was an annual increase in concentrations of carbon dioxide from 1990 to 2016. The annual mean concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide at Wanliguan Station were 404.4 ppm, 1907 ppb, and 329.7 ppb separately in 2016, slightly higher than the global mean concentration in 2016.
Sea level rise The sea level rise was 3.5mm/year from 1980 to 2022 compared to the global average of 3.2mm/year.
China's first National Assessment of Global Climate Change, released in the 2000s by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), states that China already suffers from the environmental impacts of climate change: increase of surface and ocean temperature, rise of sea level.http://www.die-gdi.de/CMS-Homepage/openwebcms3_e.nsf/(ynDK_contentByKey)/ENTR-7BDE2T?OpenDocument&nav=expand:Research%20and%20Consulting\Projects;active:Research%20and%20Consulting\Projects\ENTR-7BDE2T Temperatures in the Tibetan Plateau of China are rising four times faster than anywhere else (data from 2011). Rising sea level is an alarming trend because China has a very long and densely populated coastline, with some of the most economically developed cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou situated there. Chinese research has estimated that a one-meter rise in sea level would inundate 92,000 square kilometers of China's coast, thereby displacing 67 million people.
Climate change caused an increase in sea level, threatening to impair the functions of harbors. Urban areas face compounding threats not only from rising sea levels but also from land subsidence. A Nature research paper suggests that global sea-level rise rates since 1900 are faster than in any century over at least the past four millennia, with human activities causing over 94% of observed urban subsidence in southeastern China, creating a compounding hazard for Chinese coastal cities.
Rising sea levels affect China's coastal land. Cities along the coast such as Shanghai, only 3–5 meters above sea level leaves its 18 million residents vulnerable. According to a 2004 study by the Hong Kong Observatory, sea levels in Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong rose .12 meters since 1954.
Ecosystems
China is home to 17,300 species of plants and animals: 667 vertebrates, ancient flora and fauna. Due to rising temperatures, within the next century 20-30 percent of species will go extinct globally. As of 2011, about 35 percent of vertebrates and invertebrates, and between 70 and 90 percent of plants in China were endangered.
More than one fourth of China is covered by desert, which is growing due to desertification. Desertification in China destroys farmland, biodiversity, and exacerbates poverty.
As a result of climate change, ocean waters are becoming warmer and more acidic. This increases the vulnerability of coral in the South China Sea to other dangers like coral mining and over-fishing. This lowers biodiversity, and negatively affects the fish market economy in China.
Water resources Climate change will worsen the already uneven distribution of water resources in China, causing both drought and flooding. Atmospheric circulation changes and rising temperatures make summer monsoons less likely to travel inland where the rain is needed. However, monsoons that do occur are expected to be more intense, resulting in large quantities of flood-causing rain.
August of 2025 saw more than 10 million people in China affected by flooding and drought. A 2001 drought resulted in the loss of approximately 6.4 billion U.S. dollars' worth of crops and reduced the water supply of 33 million rural people and 22 million livestock. Drought also effects availability of electricity from hydroelectric dams resulting in a continued reliance on coal-fired power plants.
Glacier melt in the Northern Region of China causes flooding in the upper Yangtze River, and a reduction of water volume in the lower parts of the river. From 1960 to 2025, seven thousand glaciers in China had melted entirely and the total glacier area was 26% lower. As glaciers melt, dams of ice form lakes. When these dams eventually collapse, the result is called a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). This type of flood is becoming more common as a result of climate change and causes large amounts of damage.
Impacts on people
Health impacts Climate change has a significant impact on the health of Chinese people. The high temperature has caused health risks for some groups of people, such as older people (≥65 years old), outdoor workers, or people living in poverty. In 2019, each person who is older than 65 years had to endure extra 13 days of the heatwave, and 26,800 people died because of the heatwave in 2019.
In the future, the probability rate of malaria transmission will increase 39-140 percent because of temperature increase of 1-2 degrees Celsius in south China.
Economic impacts According to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report the country that will pay the highest financial cost if the temperature continue to rise is China. The impacts will include food insecurity, water scarcity, flooding, especially in coastal areas where most of the population lives due to higher than average sea level rise, and more powerful cyclones. At some point part of the country can face wet-bulb temperatures higher than humans and other mammals can tolerate more than six hours.
Agriculture In the years 1970-2016 the occurrence of crop pest and diseases increased 4 times. 22% of that rise are due to climate change. By the year 2100 the occurrence will rise 243% under a low emission scenario and by 460% under a high emissions scenario. China is the biggest producer of wheat and rice in the world. It is in the second place in maize production.The negative effects of climate change on China's agriculture have become increasingly evident. Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of heat stress and drought, contributing to greater variability in agricultural production and affecting crop yields and quality. Future climate change is projected to reduce the yields of major crops, including wheat, rice, and maize, and to alter the geographic distribution of agricultural production.
China is also facing agricultural challenges associated with the global demand for commodities such as soybeans. China's growing soybean imports have been linked to land-use change and environmental impacts in major producing countries, particularly in South America, illustrating the transnational environmental effects of agricultural commodity trade. Over the past 70 years, climate change seriously reduced China's food security. Although rising annual temperatures can accelerate crop growth and potentially increase food production, climate change in China has reduced sunshine duration and made rainfall more irregular, increasing the likelihood of climate-related disasters such as drought and flooding. Flooding decreased the yields of rice by 8% over the last 20 years. As China is the biggest food producer and importer in the world, what happens in the agricultural sector of China has an immediate effect on the global food system. China increased its grain self sufficiency by expanding agriculture areas to regions with less rain, giving them water with irrigation systems. Now those fields are at risk from water shortage while the irrigation systems demand huge amounts of water what cause depletion of groundwater in many regions. The government of China is trying to address the problem by different measures like reducing food waste, increasing international cooperation. But some of the measures like using more fertilizers produced from coal can exacerbate the problem.
Fishing Industry Due to overfishing, pollution, global temperature increase, and change in pH to the world's oceans, the South China Sea is suffering from a lack in biodiversity among marine life. Historically, China was the world's largest capture fisheries and aquaculture producer, making the fish market a significant part of the Chinese economy. Due to the environmental impacts, coral reefs in the South China Sea are dying, decreasing the amount of marine life in the South China Sea. Fisheries are not able to catch the amount of fish that was once brought to the fish market, making that part of the economy suffer. The amount of fishing in China is unsustainable, and therefore declining. The fishing industry supplies a significant amount of jobs, exports, and domestic consumption, which will disappear if the fishing industry collapses.
Mitigation