A new study reveals that China’s efforts to cut air pollution may be accelerating global warming. Since 2010, East Asian countries, especially China, reduced sulfate aerosol emissions by 75%, improving air quality but also allowing more sunlight to reach Earth’s surface causing faster warming.
This has contributed to a sharp rise in temperatures across Asia, which is now warming twice as fast as the global average, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Experts warn this faster warming is intensifying heatwaves, disrupting monsoons, fueling cyclones, raising sea levels, and melting glaciers especially in cities, coastlines, and farmlands of Asia.
While this warming spike may be temporary, its current effects are already devastating. Oceans around Asia, including the Indian and Pacific, have recorded their highest-ever surface temperatures in 2024.
Meanwhile, developing countries in Asia need $1.1 trillion annually for climate protection, but there’s an $800 billion shortfall. At COP29, wealthy nations pledged just $300 billion a year by 2035, far below what’s needed.
Climate scientists and global institutes now stress that wealthy countries must urgently cut emissions and fund climate-vulnerable nations not as charity, but as global responsibility. Cleaner air in China is good for lungs, but without balanced climate action, it’s heating up the planet faster than expected.
