ST China correspondent Danson Cheong had to buy a pair of new shoes in Chongqing for 53 yuan (S$11) - after extreme heat melted the soles of his shoes. - ST
CHONGQING (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): In the alleyways of Chongqing these days there is one constant - the roar of air-conditioning compressors and the steady dripping of condensation.
In front of Wen's stall, there are 35 of these machines just on one side of the street alone, making a big din as they keep people cool.
"It's so hot, everyone needs to turn on the air-conditioner. People stay home because they don't dare to go out," said the street vendor, who declined to give her full name.
The 48-year-old, who sells fried potatoes in a western suburb of Chongqing, said her takings have dropped by about half because of the latest heatwave, now well into its third month.
With daily temperatures reaching upwards of 40 deg C, residents of China's hottest city are staying home and cranking up the air-conditioning to keep cool.
One of China's "furnace cities", the sprawling megacity of 32 million people in the country's south-west is known for its unbearably hot summers.
But this year, it is sweltering. In parts of the city, the mercury touched 45 deg C on Aug 18 - the highest on record.
On Wednesday, half of China's top 10 highest temperatures were logged in various parts of Chongqing, with the rest recorded in neighbouring Sichuan province.
Air-conditioning now accounts for more than half of power demand in Chongqing - about 30 per cent higher than the same period last year, according to the State Grid Chongqing Electric Power Company.
It is causing residential power demand to spike at a time when the heatwave and accompanying drought have dried up parts of the Yangtze River - severely curtailing hydropower production in a region where this renewable source of energy accounts for more than 80 per cent of electricity generation.
The authorities in Chongqing and Sichuan have urged businesses to "leave power for the people", rationing power to factories and businesses to ensure there are no residential blackouts.
In Chongqing, factories have been ordered to close, shopping malls are allowed to open for only five hours from 4pm, and street lights dimmed to lower power consumption.
The prolonged hot weather and power curbs laid bare the impact of climate change and the risk of increasingly extreme weather.
"I'm not very educated, but I think this is because of climate change. What I have experienced is that the weather is becoming more extreme, and each year it gets hotter," said Hou Liqiao, a driver.
The 32-year old told The Straits Times this was the hottest summer in his 16 years in Chongqing.
"The Jialing River has dried up," he noted, referring to a tributary of the Yangtze that flows through Chongqing. "And there are bushfires in the hills. It's too extreme."
Chinese meteorologists have blamed the latest bout of extreme weather on climate change and warned that such episodes could become more common.
But experts also say the latest power crisis shows how worsening climate change and the extreme weather it wreaks could lead to increased power demand for cooling or heating.
"We need to anticipate much larger demand peaks for heating or cooling in particular for the residential sector. That's an emerging challenge and adds another layer of complexity at a time when we need to reduce our reliance on coal," said Greenpeace East Asia senior policy adviser Li Shuo.
He pointed out that there was a similar power crunch during the winter two years ago in Hunan, where a cold snap curbed production of hydropower, wind and solar energy.
At the same time power demand for residential heating grew, requiring industrial and commercial power cuts.
Two years on, Hunan is at the "forefront" of approving coal projects, he said.
A Greenpeace study released last month showed the province had approved 5.32 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants from 2021 to the first quarter of this year.
The risk is that the latest crisis could again cause China's policymakers to fall back on the same playbook.
"If we go down that path it will be very short sighted," said Li.
"We would not be turning a crisis into an opportunity, but quite the opposite, because we would be locking ourselves further into a fossil-based energy system, which will only exacerbate climate impacts in the future."
