Wandering the streets of Shenzhen, a city which has earned the title of China’s “first city of ‘new-energy vehicles’” (NEVs), you will not miss the scene of numerous NEVs parking under slogans promoting “green and low carbon” lifestyles.
Shenzhen, a city of nearly 18 million people bordering Hong Kong, is known for pioneering China’s economic reforms 40 years ago.
Now, it is taking carbon mitigation measures ahead of others and acts as a “pilot” for the construction of “low-carbon cities” in China.
It is the first Chinese city that has replaced all of its buses, taxis and ride-hailing cars with electric versions, while about 77% of all new cars sold in Shenzhen were NEVs 2024 – significantly higher than the national rate of 48%.
It has also introduced a carbon emissions cap – in support of switching from the “dual control of energy” to “dual control of carbon” – ahead of the announcement of a national cap.
In addition, the Shenzhen local emissions trading system (ETS) and “green bonds” were both rolled out before the national ETS and national “green” bonds.
Despite taking steps early, some scholars tell Carbon Brief that Shenzhen’s efforts – which the local government calls the “Shenzhen model” – will be tricky to reproduce for city-level low-carbon transitions elsewhere in China.
Carbon Brief looks back at Shenzhen’s low-carbon transition efforts to date and assesses its progress on carbon mitigation.
Electric transportation
Shenzhen’s low-carbon transition did not happen overnight – it resulted from early planning, government support and market-driven solutions, Wei Fulei, director of finance, taxation, trade and the industrial development research centre at the China Development Institute (CDI), a state-sponsored thinktank based in Shenzhen, tells Carbon Brief.
The city’s low-carbon transformation kicked off in the 2000s, when the number of days with heavy air pollution peaked in Shenzhen.
A BBC News report back in 2017 said that after a decade’s work on tackling pollution, Shenzhen “reduced its average air pollution by around 50%”.
The move was largely a result of changing its “industrial base”, which made Shenzhen “one of [the] first batch of these ‘low-carbon cities’”, said the BBC News article.
During this period, the officials developed strategies for “low-carbon development”. Part of this included nourishing the growth of a number of “strategic emerging industries”, such as the “information and communications technology“, which in return provided core technology support for low-carbon industries, largely benefiting the NEV sector.
The current leading global electric vehicle (EV) giant, BYD, for example, was born in Shenzhen against this background.
“With this ‘industry gene’, Shenzhen only needs to adapt and upgrade accordingly to meet the new demands of the NEV industry [in the 2020s],” says Wei.
According to the Shenzhen government work report at the 2025 “two sessions”, the city – whose population makes up 1% of the country’s total – produced 22% of China’s NEVs in 2024.
About 100 new “climate investment and financing projects” will be launched in the year ahead, said the report, adding that another 180bn yuan ($24bn) of “green loans” will be also be issued.
Shen Xinyi, analyst and China team lead at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), tells Carbon Brief that the local government has a track record of nurturing new industries:
“Wind and solar power, along with EVs, were all emerging industries that required substantial investment and technological research 20 years ago…The risk of failure was high, but the Shenzhen government introduced innovative policies to support them.”
The quick growth of NEV companies has pushed up the share of NEVs in the local vehicle market. On top of national subsidies, the local government has also provided support for producing and purchasing NEVs.
In 2024, NEVs accounted for some 77% of new car sales in Shenzhen, significantly higher than the national share of 48%.
In addition, the city has also replaced all of its buses, taxis and ride-hailing cars with electric versions – the first city to have done so in China.
Heran Zheng, lecturer in sustainable infrastructure economics and finance at University College London (UCL), tells Carbon Brief that the “greener transport fleet” speeds up Shenzhen’s low-carbon transition, because a city’s low-carbon transition mainly requires two focuses – “transport transition” and “industry decarbonisation”.
Zheng says:
“There are limited policy efforts a city can make in carbon mitigation. It can work on greener transports. London, for example, set up the Ultra Low Emission Zone to encourage the usage of public transport and cleaner vehicles. And a city can upgrade industries and mitigate their emissions, which are harder to do because no city wants to slow down economic growth.”
Shenzhen, “different from some coal mining cities in China”, has an “advantage” in industry transition, says Zheng, which allows it to set “more ambitious” emissions targets.
Carbon control
China uses energy intensity and carbon intensity – the energy use and emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) – as key metrics in its climate policies.
In addition, the country has been using the “dual control of energy” system – regulating energy intensity and energy consumption – since 2016. However, it announced plans to switch to the “dual control of carbon” in 2024.
Under the new system, a binding cap for total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will be set and will become the main target after 2030, while carbon intensity – the prime target before 2030 – will be gradually lowered to be the secondary target.
(Read more about the “dual control” systems in this edition of China Briefing.)
Here too, Shenzhen was an early mover. As early as 2023, it became China’s “first city to explicitly state its commitment to the ‘dual control [of carbon]’ system”, according to Dialogue Earth.
It issued two “implementation plans” towards this effort, published in 2023, as well as developing a city-level carbon emissions cap.
The plans, compared to the national ones, have more ambitious timelines. A city-level “dual control of carbon” system will be built up by 2025 and it will be “fully implemented” in 2026-30. One of the plans says:
“We will strive to achieve the goal of using a dual carbon emission control approach to carry out quota allocation in the Shenzhen carbon market [for the] manufacturing industry by 2028…and strive to achieve a significant improvement in market regulation capabilities by 2030.”
Shenzhen plans to reduce its energy intensity by 14.5% before the end of 2025, compared to 2020 levels. The national energy intensity target is 13.5% during the same period.
Zheng says that Shenzhen’s commitment “should be within its capacity”, adding:
“There are three major carbon mitigation areas [for China as a whole] – steel, cement and electricity. Shenzhen has no major steel and cement industries, so it only needs to largely focus on electricity…It is also not at the upstream of a supply chain, unlike some fossil fuel cities; it doesn’t need to worry about business, such as coal mining. Its industry structure is dominated by ‘high value-added’ industries, such as technology and NEVs, whose emissions are easier to mitigate.
“In addition, the city is a technology hub. A lot of high-emissions manufacturers have moved out of Shenzhen to its neighbouring cities, such as Shanwei. This is what we call ‘emissions outsourcing’. Shenzhen, benefiting from this, has fewer hurdles in [its] green transition.”
Last year, Zheng and colleagues published a study on this outsourcing of emissions between Chinese cities in Nature. They found that “some cities benefit from the carbon mitigation efforts of other cities more than their own” and suggested that policymakers work to acknowledge these effects.
Another “big difference” between Shenzhen and other cities is that “Shenzhen has its own nuclear power”, says Zheng, which is “important” for the city’s electricity transition – the remaining sector that Shenzhen needs to put efforts towards low-carbon transition.
Low-carbon energy
According to a 2021 report, Shenzhen’s “largest local power source” is the Daya Bay nuclear power station, with a total installed capacity of 6.1 gigawatts (GW).
Nuclear power accounted for 35% of the city’s total power generation in 2021.
It has also pushed up Shenzhen’s low-carbon energy usage – about 47% of Shenzhen’s primary energy consumption was from clean energy in 2024.
Nuclear dwarfs all the other clean energy sources feeding into the city’s grid. The Shenzhen local authority’s 2025 government work report says current solar power capacity stands at about 1GW – and it does not mention wind capacity.
Its “14th five-year plan for climate change response” says that Shenzhen’s renewable energy capacity has “little room” for future growth due to “scarce” energy resources and “limited” land for wind and solar power.
Meanwhile, Shenzhen relies heavily on imported electricity, which accounts for approximately 70% of the city’s total electricity consumption.
This reliance limits Shenzhen’s control over emissions from the sector. It also challenges the local grid’s ability to manage demand during peak usage times.
In 2024, China approved the constructions of more nuclear reactors in Shenzhen’s neighbouring city of Huizhou.
The Shenzhen government also aims to “raise the combined share of natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy to 90% in 2025, up from the current figure of 77%, which is noticeably ahead of the nationwide figure of 52%”, according to a research paper in 2022.
Zheng says that “Shenzhen is a lot like its neighbour Hong Kong, whose energy transition does not rely on solar and wind build up either”.
He adds that in order to achieve a sustainable energy transition, both Shenzhen and Hong Kong would need to utilise their advantage as “financial cities”.
‘Green finance’
Shenzhen has long been using “market forces” and has successfully “struck a balance between government support and market-driven solutions”, where enterprises “take the lead, handling 90% of the work”, while the government intervenes only when necessary, says Wei.
With little interference from the government, Shenzhen was one of the first seven cities and provinces in China that established a local “pilot” ETS in 2013, ahead of the national rollout in 2021.
Similar to China’s national scheme, the local ETS allocates emissions allowances for companies to trade on the market, based on their emissions intensity – the emissions per unit of output – rather than absolute emissions.
The Shenzhen local ETS covered 38% of the city’s carbon emissions upon launching. The figure rose to 50% in 2020 and will continue to expand, says a report by the trading forum International Carbon Action Partnership (ICPA), with a shift to an “absolute cap” for carbon emissions being announced to apply from 2027.
(For now, the national ETS does not include a cap on emissions either, although this is also set to change.)
However, Yan Qin, carbon analyst at consultancy firm ClearBlue Markets, tells Carbon Brief that despite Shenzhen ETS plans to expand its coverage, more pilot ETS are seeing their coverage “shrinking” due to enterprises leaving to join the national ETS”.
ICPA’s research also finds that electricity production was excluded from the Shenzhen ETS after 2019 when it “transitioned to the China national ETS”.
Yan says that the pilot ETS, nevertheless, “has been an important testing field, paving the way for the successful launch of national ETS eventually. [It] will continue to exist and cover the small to medium enterprises as well as sectors outside national ETS”.
The Shenzhen local ETS, as of 2022, covers water, gas, heat, manufacturing, transport and other sectors, says ICPA.
It was the biggest local ETS in China as of 2024 and maintains the highest annual trading volumes in the country for several consecutive years, says Shenzhen Business News.
In the meantime, Shenzhen has taken initiatives in “green finance”, bringing private investments into the market.
In 2021, Shenzhen issued China’s first overseas sales of “green government bonds” in Hong Kong along with China’s first local “green finance legislation”, which provides a “solid institutional guarantee” for regulating the “green market”, according to an assessment of the legislation by research institute the International Institute of Green Finance.
In contrast, China’s national sovereign bonds were only available to international buyers from April 2025.
Various other “green finance” products have also been issued. According to state-run newspaper Economic Daily, about 4.6 trillion yuan ($633bn) was traded for new energy, NEVs and other environment-related stocks at the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in the first half of 2024.
Nevertheless, Zheng says that the impact of the “green bonds” is “hard to evaluate”. He says: “A lot of projects, such as sewage treatment, can also fall into the category of ‘green bonds’”.
According to the state broadcaster CCTV, Shenzhen’s “green bonds” issued in 2021 covered projects including “construction of ordinary public high schools, urban rail transit and water management”.
Zheng says that although these projects are linked to energy efficiency improvements, they nonetheless make only “limited contributions” to cutting carbon emissions.
Zheng adds that market guidance is “necessary” in a city’s low-carbon transition, but “there is not yet a study on how large a green finance product can make a difference on mitigation”.
Shen says there is nevertheless an important role for “financial instruments” to support the low-carbon transition. She explains:
“Low-carbon industries generally have higher costs than fossil fuel-based industries…With policy support and financial instruments, the costs can be reduced, allowing these industries to scale up.”
‘Shenzhen model’
The local government and media outlets have touted the city’s achievements on climate as the “Shenzhen model”, implying that it could be applied elsewhere.
Xu Hua, an official from the Shenzhen Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, said the model “demonstrated the results to the world” at last year’s COP29:
“Firstly, Shenzhen has continuously improved its top-level design…establishing a comprehensive policy system. Secondly, the city has focused on the transformation and upgrading of key sectors…promoting strategic emerging industries such as new energy, energy conservation, and environmental protection. Thirdly, following the principle of openness…Shenzhen has been exploring new paths for green and low-carbon development.”
Xu added that the city “positions itself as a leader in green development nationwide”, as it had “significantly reduced its energy consumption, water usage and carbon emissions per 10,000 yuan of GDP to one-third, one-eighth and one-fifth of the national average, respectively” by the end of 2023.
However, not all of Shenzhen’s journey is “replicable”, says Shen, adding: “Shenzhen capitalised on the opportunities of its era.” She tells Carbon Brief:
“For example, its supply chain advantages and the skilled workforce that has settled in the city have been key enablers of its high-end manufacturing sector.”
Zheng agrees with Shen, saying that Shenzhen can only represent a certain type of city in China. He says:
“Shenzhen is China’s Silicon Valley and heavily invests in high-end technology. It can only represent a [certain] type of cities in China, the ‘top tier’, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. There are more than 300 cities in China, all facing unique transition situations. It is meaningless for coal-heavy industrial cities to learn from Shenzhen.”
Other cities in China, meanwhile, have also started to explore their own ways to achieve sustainable development.
The city of Suzhou has built the Suzhou Industrial Park – one of China’s first pilot low-carbon industrial parks. It has also established a “market-based carbon inclusion trading system”, which incentivises “voluntary” carbon emission trading among citizens, as well as small- and medium-sized companies.
Meanwhile, the city of Tianjin has launched a collaboration with Singapore to “explore a path for China’s urban systems to reduce carbon emissions”, according to a Xinhua report.
Other cities must “adapt strategies according to their unique conditions”, Shen adds. This sentiment is reflected in a 2023 document issued by China’s State Council – the country’s central government. The document, called “China’s green development in the new era”, says that:
“Local authorities should rely on their resource endowments, environmental conditions and industrial development foundations to fully leverage the comparative advantages.”
The post Explainer: What is China’s ‘Shenzen model’ for low-carbon transition in cities? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Explainer: What is China’s ‘Shenzen model’ for low-carbon transition in cities?
The fossil fuel crisis triggered by the Iran war should push nations to speed up their shift towards clean energy and break their dependence on volatile sources, energy and climate ministers said on Tuesday.
Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s climate minister and COP31 president, said the crisis was yet another demonstration that fossil fuels cannot guarantee energy security, making it crucial for countries to diversify by investing in renewable energy.
“We know that relying solely on fossil fuels means walking towards volatility, insecurity and climate collapse,” he told fellow ministers at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an annual gathering in Berlin that traditionally opens the global climate diplomacy calendar.
Ministers from more than 30 countries, along with United Nations representatives, are meeting until Wednesday to lay the groundwork for a deal to accelerate climate action at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye.
They will debate how to ramp up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, mobilise climate finance amid shrinking international aid budgets, and leverage a strained multilateral system to deliver results.
Fossil fuels not the answer
The gathering is taking place in the shadow of what some energy analysts have described as the largest oil and gas supply disruption in history. The conflict in the Middle East has sent oil and gas prices soaring, with growing ripple effects on food production and industrial manufacturing.
Australia’s escalating fuel crisis meant the country’s energy minister Chris Bowen, who will also be in charge of COP31 negotiations, cancelled his trip to the Berlin summit. Joining by videolink, he said the crisis is a “unique opportunity” to underline the message that “energy reliability, energy sovereignty and energy security are entirely in keeping with strong decarbonisation”.
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“Doubling down on fossil fuels is not the answer to this crisis,” he added. “Wind cannot be subject to a sanction, the sun cannot be interrupted by a blockade. These are all reliable forms of energy, which must be supported by storage”.
Electrification is a “megatrend”
Echoing Bowen’s remarks, Germany’s climate minister Carsten Schneider said the current crisis will be “an accelerator [of the energy transition] because it will help many people understand and realise how dependent we are on fossil fuels”.
He added that “electrification is turning into a global megatrend” but called for more discussion on how to ensure that industry and transport become less reliant on oil and gas across the world.
At last year’s climate talks, countries failed to agree to start a process to draft a global plan to shift away from oil, coal and gas. But the Brazilian COP30 presidency is taking it upon itself to deliver this roadmap before the summit in Antalya.
Discussions are expected to kick into higher gear at the first-ever conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels due to start at the end of this week in Colombia. COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago has said the roadmap should be published in September.
Clear plans needed
Addressing the Petersberg summit, the head of the United Nations António Guterres said that transition roadmaps can help countries manage urgent choices during the ongoing fuel crisis while advancing a just transition to a clean and secure energy future.
“We must respond to the energy crisis without deepening the climate crisis,” he added. “Short-term measures must not lock in long-term fossil fuel dependence and expansion”.
The ministers argued that, despite the US withdrawal from international climate diplomacy under President Trump, other countries remained committed to working together to tackle the climate crisis.
But Türkiye’s Kurum scolded the more than 40 governments that have not yet published their national climate plans, more than a year after the official UN deadline. These are mostly smaller nations, but the group of laggards also includes Vietnam, Argentina and Egypt.
“We will ensure that countries fulfil the fundamental requirements of the COP,” he said, adding that his team is working intensely with the UN to ensure these plans – known as nationally determined contributions – are submitted.
“Without diagnosis, you can’t treat”, he said.
The post Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say appeared first on Climate Home News.
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
Ilka Vega is the executive for economic and environmental justice at United Women in Faith, the largest denominational faith organisation for women in the United States.
For climate justice advocates around the globe, many of the United States’ environmental policies have felt dangerous. In this moment, Earth Day might feel sobering as we acknowledge the gravity of these dangers. However, we cannot allow bad actors at the national level to shake our spirit. Instead, we can harness the energy of Earth Day and mobilize our communities for change.
Of course, while local action is powerful, it is against a backdrop of rollbacks to environmental protections. In 2026, the current US administration has continued on its track of undermining climate action, taking us back decades on efforts to mitigate and adapt to the escalating climate crisis.
In January, the US withdrew from several international climate organizations and treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. In February, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which will make it more difficult to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants.
More destructive weather extremes
Climate change is not a future threat – it is affecting people right now. And it is not an abstract concept. We have seen its impact in tangible ways.
In 2025, the mainland United States experienced the fourth hottest year on record. In February of this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported an average surface temperature 2.12° F higher than the 20th-century average.
Tornadoes, tropical cyclones, floods and other natural disasters devastated communities around the world, and have been growing more frequent and destructive due to climate change. Frontline communities disproportionately suffer these effects. Women and children are most likely to be displaced and are more likely to suffer gender-based violence when natural disasters and weather emergencies occur.
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As climate change devastates communities, it is important that we take practical steps to prevent future harm. We can work with each other to encourage new practices, even without the support of powerful people. Our force can have an impact on communities beyond our imaginations. I have seen this in action, from my own neighborhood to organizations across the US and around the world.
Communities resisting the old and building the new
For example, last year in Texas, people from all walks of life came together to protest the toxicity of fossil fuels in front of oil and gas CEOs. In Oak Flat Arizona, an Apache stronghold is still resisting a destructive copper mine project despite setbacks that threaten to shatter their sacred lands.
One woman in La Mesa, California led efforts to engage nearby school districts in discussions about joining the EPA’s Clean School Bus program. In the wake of hurricanes, First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans used their solar panels to offer relief through charging and cooling for neighbors experiencing power outages.
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In Marange, Zimbabwe, Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe installed energy-efficient stoves in their community. A project with similar goals, Eco-Green Gold in Bolgatanga, Ghana trained 40 women to produce charcoal from grass as an eco-friendly alternative to wood-based charcoal. They both are creating opportunities for their neighbors while reducing deforestation and promoting renewable energy.
Shared responsibility for a cleaner, safer planet
These communities have shown that we all have a responsibility to fight for a cleaner, healthier and safer Earth. That responsibility does not end when the government is not doing enough; rather, it becomes imperative that we boost our efforts.
Although there is only so much we can do about the actions of a powerful government and wealthy corporations, we can influence what happens in our own communities – and that influence matters.
Individual actions build powerful movements; change must always begin at the local level. When we see people around the world organizing and taking direct action, we realize the true scale of what is possible. Every effort, no matter how small, becomes part of a larger movement that cannot be ignored.
We hold onto the unwavering belief that we can still turn the tide on climate change – and it is that hope that drives every step of our work toward a better, sustainable future.
The post Earth Day is an opportunity for communities to show the way on climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.
Earth Day is an opportunity for communities to show the way on climate action
Kaveh Zahedi is the Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Director of FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment. Ko Barrett is the Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Every crop, every animal and every fish has a thermal limit, the point where additional heat stops being normal weather and starts doing damage. In food systems, that threshold arrives sooner than many people realise.
For key agricultural species, the danger zone often sits between 25 and 35°C at the moments that matter most, such as flowering and reproduction. As climate change drives more days into the mid-40s°C in major breadbaskets, those limits are already being crossed. The result is lower yields, weaker livestock, stressed fisheries, higher fire risk and farmworkers – the backbone of the system – forced into unsafe conditions.
A new joint FAO-WMO report, released on April 22, shows that extreme heat is already cutting production and exposing agricultural workers to dangerous conditions. One analysis found that beef cattle mortality reached as high as 24% in some documented heatwaves. Marine heatwaves were linked to an estimated $6.6 billion loss in fisheries production. And the outlook worsens as temperatures rise. For every 1°C of warming, maize and wheat yields are projected to drop 4–10%.
Adapting to a hotter world will take long-term investment in science, technology and infrastructure if food supplies are to keep pace with demand. We will need more heat-tolerant varieties and breeds, new farming practices, and we will need to make hard choices about what can still be grown as conditions change. But we also need a plan for next season, not just 2100.
With more severe heat likely in the coming years and another El Niño poised to test unprepared systems, the priority is to move from crisis response to heat readiness. That starts with early warnings and practical measures to help farmers protect harvests, supply chains and their own safety.
Heat warnings farmers can use
Weather forecasts should give farmers time to act before extreme heat turns into loss. That is the strategy behind Early Warnings for All, the UN initiative coordinated by WMO with partners including FAO. But early warning only works when reliable observations, modelling and verification turn weather and climate data into forecasts farmers can actually use.
Cambodia’s Green Climate Fund-funded PEARL project, supported by FAO, upgraded and installed new weather stations to feed a phone-based app that sends forecasts with crop- and region-specific guidance. When forecasts exceed 38°C, alerts recommend maintaining soil moisture with mulch, shading vegetables, delaying sowing rice seeds, and shifting irrigation to cooler hours.
That advice is part of a practical set of heat measures that help farmers reduce losses before extreme heat turns into crisis. In some cases, that means shading crops with cloth or solar panels, increasing water storage, installing low-cost cooling misters, or adjusting planting windows. Cattle generate heat when they eat, so feeding them in cooler hours can help.
Poultry cannot sweat, so shade is essential. Where extreme heat is becoming the norm, farmers may need to move from cattle to more heat-tolerant goats and sheep, or even switch crops. Evidence from Pakistan shows these adjustments can pay off. A FAO-GCF project field-tested the combination of heat- and drought-tolerant cotton and wheat varieties with mulching and adjusted planting windows. Over six seasons, returns reached as high as $8 for every $1 invested.
Extreme heat doesn’t only damage food in the field. It also speeds up spoilage after harvest, turning heat stress into income loss and poorer diets. An estimated 526 million tonnes of food, about 12% of the global total, is lost or wasted because of insufficient refrigeration. In Jamaica, a GCF-funded, FAO-supported programme treats cold storage as climate adaptation, using solar-powered cold storage to help smallholders keep produce market-ready when heat hits.
Protecting workers
Cold chains and toolkits matter, but they don’t protect the people doing the work. Extreme heat is one of the biggest threats to farmers’ health, driving dehydration, kidney injury and chronic disease, and taxing public health systems in the process. More than a third of the global workforce, around 1.2 billion people, face workplace heat risk each year, with agriculture among the hardest-hit sectors.
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We already know what basic protection looks like, and it is already being put into practice in Cambodia, where the extreme heat advisories are paired with advice for farmers to shift heavy work to cooler hours and ensure access to water, shade and rest breaks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and WMO are calling for the same approach at a wider scale: adjusted work–rest schedules, access to shade and safe drinking water, training to recognize heat illness, and integrating weather and climate information into workplace risk management.
Why preparation pays
The tools to prepare for extreme heat already exist. The problem is that funding still falls far short of the scale of the risk, and rural communities are too often overlooked by the assumption that extreme heat is mainly an urban problem.
In 2023, agrifood systems received just 4% of total climate-related development finance. Without more investment, early warnings won’t reach the people who need them most, extension services will remain under-resourced, and basic protections for crops, livestock and workers will stay out of reach.
Preparing in advance is cheaper than absorbing the same losses year after year. It can stabilise production and prices now, while buying time for the bigger scientific and structural shifts agriculture will need in a hotter world.
We don’t need a new playbook. We need to use the one we already have. The FAO-WMO report lays out the risks of extreme heat. Now is the time to use that evidence to protect food systems and the people who sustain them.
The post Extreme heat is rewriting food security. The best fixes are already within reach appeared first on Climate Home News.
Extreme heat is rewriting food security. The best fixes are already within reach
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Extreme heat is rewriting food security. The best fixes are already within reach
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