• Home
• About Us
• Funding
• Our Research
• Working with business

• Careers
• Publications
• Press
• Events

How bad could it get?

18 July 2005

China and the UK study the impact of climate change.

What will climate change do to biodiversity, forestry and agriculture? What will its impact be on patterns of disease, water resources and air quality? Leading climate change experts from the UK and China meet in Beijing to look at the latest predictions to emerge from computer modelling studies.

"Climate change is a global problem that cannot be tackled by any one country acting alone. British and Chinese scientists need to draw from each other's research to understand more about the impacts of climate change. This is why it is so important to be here," said Steven Wilson, the Natural Environment Research Council's Director for Science & Innovation.

In the first UK-China workshop of its type, which takes place on 18-21 July at the Chinese Meteorological Administration in Beijing, 30 Chinese and 14 British experts look at the likely future impacts of climate change on regional patterns of rainfall, sea level and storm surges under different carbon emissions scenarios. How farmers might adapt to climate change is also on the agenda.

The meeting kicks off with the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) signing their first ever agreement to co-operate in environmental research. The outcomes of this workshop will be discussed at a follow-up conference in the UK in November.

Climate change is high on the agenda during the UK's presidencies of the G8 group and the EU in the second half of this year. British Prime Minister Tony Blair sees climate change as "probably, long-term, the single most important issue we face as a global community".

The Beijing workshop's objectives are to present UK and Chinese approaches to issues such as building atmospheric and regional climate models; quantifying the impacts of climate change on the environment and on humans, and discussing likely adaptation of species and habitats and options for mitigation of the worst climate-change effects. Recommendations will also be made for continuing China-UK research co-operation this area.

This workshop is part of the UK-China Partners in Science series of activities in China in 2005, a joint initiative backed by both the UK and the Chinese governments to increase scientific collaboration between the two countries.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411561
Mob: 07917 557215

Ren Donghua
Press & Public Affairs Section
British Embassy
11 Guanghua Lu
Beijing 100600, P. R. of China
Tel: +86 (0) 10 5192 4385
Fax: +86 (0) 10 6532 1937

Notes

1. For more information on UK-China Partners in Science, please see the UK-China Parter in Science website [site since removed].

2. The event is organised jointly by the National Natural Science Research Foundation of China (NNSFC) and the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

3. NNSFC sponsors the National Climate Centre (NCC) of China Meteorological Administration (CMA). This was founded in January 1995 and has developed into the major national operational and research centre on climate in China, working on climate monitoring and diagnosis, climate prediction, climate impact assessment as well as climate change. The Beijing Climate Centre of the CMA serves as a World Meteorological Organisation regional climate centre.

4. NERC is one of the UK's research councils. It uses a budget of about £350m a year to fund and carry out impartial scientific research in the sciences of the environment. NERC trains the next generation of independent environmental scientists. It is addressing some of the key issues facing mankind such as global warming, renewable energy and sustainable economic development. Improving knowledge and investment in climate change research is one of NERC's highest priorities for the coming years.

5. The recent G8 conference in Gleneagles, Scotland noted that 'all countries need further access to information and to develop the scientific capacity that will allow their governments to ingrate climate, environmental, health, economic and social factors into development planning and resilience strategies'. The G8 countries account for over 65% of global GDP and 47% of global CO2 emissions. Developing countries represented at Gleneagles, one of which was China, account for a further 23% of emissions.

6. Climate change was recognised in a recent statement from eleven national Academies of Science, including the UK's Royal Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to be mainly caused by human activities, with global surface temperatures likely to increase to between 1·4°C and 5·9°C above 1990 levels by 2100.

Press release: 35/05