BEIJING, May 24: Global warming has intensified drastically in recent years, triggering a surge of extreme weather worldwide. Particularly hard-hit, Pakistan faces recurrent and devastating climate disasters, ranging from lethal heatwaves and glacial lake outburst floods to violent monsoon downpours. These escalating climate risks have become a lingering threat to the country’s ecological stability and socio-economic development.
Against this backdrop, the tailored meteorological cooperation between China and Pakistan has emerged as a pragmatic and effective solution. It fully embodies the spirit of South-South solidarity and offers a down-to-earth paradigm for inclusive global climate governance.
This was stated by Prof Cheng Xizhong, Senior Research Fellow at the Charhar Institute, a non-governmental Chinese think-tank on diplomacy and international studies based in Beijing.
He said that the highlight of the bilateral cooperation lies in China’s localized MAZU multi-hazard early warning system. Fully adapted to Pakistan’s distinctive terrain, fragmented meteorological data resources and constrained local infrastructure, this cloud-based platform incorporates Fengyun satellite remote sensing data, intelligent AI modeling and locally optimized algorithms.
Capable of issuing accurate, gap-free early warnings for heatwaves, flash floods and various agricultural meteorological hazards, the system has successfully avoided casualties in high-risk valley areas during extreme weather episodes. Furthermore, its full-cycle agricultural services effectively safeguard Pakistan’s food security, stabilize farmers’ incomes and underpin the country’s long-term sustainable development, he added.
Prof Cheng remarked that this win-win cooperation yields profound bilateral and global significance. Pakistan’s complex and diverse climate scenarios provide a valuable real-world testing ground for China’s meteorological technologies, enabling both sides to continuously optimize cross-border disaster early warning and prevention capabilities.
More importantly, different from costly and cumbersome large-scale infrastructure projects, this cooperation features low costs, flexible modular design and strong local adaptability. It serves as a replicable and referable model for numerous climate-vulnerable developing countries in the Global South to build climate resilience amid growing global climate crises, he added.
