Nation plays key role in climate change debate

Ye Qi, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy at Tsinghua University, said the report is particularly significant "in bringing our attention to what kind of impact climate change will have on our cities, our economy, our lives and our society as a whole" so that people globally can better relate to the importance of mitigation work.

The scientists started to work on the report after an agreement between the Chinese and UK governments was signed during President Xi's visit to the UK in 2015.

The report was due to be presented at the Katowice conference.

Remarkable growth

The potential impact on China includes a possible threefold rise in the number of heat waves by the end of the century, while glacier mass could be reduced by almost 70 percent, affecting water resource availability in parts of West China, the report said.

Bedford, from The Nature Conservancy, said China's economic growth has been remarkable, but with this comes increased carbon dioxide emissions.

"Rising sea levels and more extreme weather events such as Typhoon Mangkhut also put its heavily populated coast at risk. And there's public concern on broader environmental issues such as urban air, water quality and soil pollution," he said.

Typhoon Mangkhut was an extremely powerful tropical cyclone that caused widespread damage in Guam, the Philippines and South China in mid-September.

Climate change will put pressure on water sources and increase the risk of droughts in China, which in turn will dramatically affect crops such as rice, Bedford said.

"Being the world's largest rice producer and consumer, the country has already started to safeguard its food security," he said.