China 'heating up twice as fast as rest of the world,' says country's top meteorologist

Global climate change is causing China to heat up "twice as fast as the rest of the world since the middle of the 20th century," according to China Meteorological Administration head Zheng Guoguang, the country's top weather official.

Zheng was speaking on World Meteorological Day when he revealed that China's temperatures have increased by 0.23 degrees Celsius every decade since the 1950s - almost twice the rate of the rest of the world. This has cost the country around one percent of its GDP - eight times as much as the rest of the world - since 2000.

Zheng also outlined the threats climate change poses to agricultural production, water supplies, and the safety of engineering mega-projects such as the Three Gorges Dam and the South-North Water Diversion Project.

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"As the world warms," Zheng warned, "risks of climate change and climate disasters to China could become more grave."

China is currently the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide but Beijing hopes to cap the country's emissions by 2030.