Eurasia’s Maritime Rise and Global Security by Geoffrey F. Gresh

Author:Geoffrey F. Gresh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Adaptation Strategies for Rising Sea Levels in the PRD

Climate change in China has been viewed as a problem of the future,46 with more focus placed on mitigation strategies. Often times this is politically expedient. It is easier, for example, to tout a policy success in reducing emission levels and seeing an increase in blue sky days than to create adaptations for a coming rise in sea levels that may be half a century away.

Sea level rise, however, is all but locked in; the only room for debate is in how much rise will actually occur. China should not abandon mitigation strategies, but it should plan and implement adaptation strategies to handle the coming rise in water levels. Successful adaptation strategies should be focused in two distinct areas. The first is an organizational approach to combat the lack of coherence on how strategies should be implemented. The second is a more creative approach in utilizing both hard and soft armoring to create barriers against rising sea levels.

The current organizational structure regarding sea level rise in China places the onus largely on the local communities directly affected by the rising oceans.47 However, local governments have largely focused on maximizing profits of the municipality and meddled in social and economic operations when it interferes with this goal. This has led to the prioritization of short-term economic growth, at the expense of long-term thinking. Complicating this factor is lateral competition between communities to attract FDI and other business investment, which not only prevents individual action on climate change due to fear of losing out on the creation of a favorable business climate but also in regional cooperation on the issue. The PRD contains over ten communities, and regional cooperation on sea level rise will be critical in effectively adapting to the challenge. Local governments also pick and choose what national policies they choose to follow, opting for those that promote economic growth and fit with personal agendas and ambitions of local leaders.48

China has no official national strategy on how to deal with sea level rise, and no one agency oversees the challenges related to sea level rise. Multiple ministries oversee issues relating to water resources.49 The Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) is responsible for land reclamation projects and is supported by the Ministry of Land Resources (MLR). The MLR is primarily responsible for feasibility studies for the MWR . The State Oceanic Administration (SOA) handles all coastal management issues.50 The SOA is subordinate to the MWR and has no coordinating power among the ministries affected by climate change, yet it is the lead agency on the issue of sea level rise.51 The issue of flooding is also a problem. The MWR has jurisdiction on flooding writ large and is responsible for flood planning and implementation, yet flooding is also a core function of the Ministries of Agriculture and Communication.52 Chinese policy on natural disasters and flooding adds a final complication to the matter. If a disaster is confined to a single province, then all the responsibility falls on local and provincial governments.

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