‘It’s getting extremely hard’: climate crisis forces China to ration electricity

Forest fires, droughts and heatwaves across the country is forcing provinces to reduce power consumption

There were still some streetlights on the Bund, one of the main roads in central Shanghai. But the decorative lights which light up the city skyline - blue, pink, and red - were turned off for two days to cope with the peaking power demand.

The power restriction imposed by the city authorities, was the first in Shanghai, the financial hub of China. But across the rest of the country similar restrictions have been put in place, as cities, notably in the south-western region, grapple with ongoing power shortages caused by devastating droughts this summer.