It’s World Meteorological Day and China’s top meteorologist is worried about climate change. Over the weekend Zheng Guoguang, chief of China’s Meteorological Administration, made an unusually frank and straightforward admission about the “huge impact” that climate change could have on the country.

Zheng told state media on Sunday that rising temperatures would reduce crop yields, lead to “ecological degradation” and create unstable river flows that threaten major hydropower projects.

“As the world warms, risks of climate change and climate disasters to China could become more grave,” Zheng said, also noting that temperature increases in mainland China over the last 100 years have exceeded global averages.

“To face the challenges from past and future climate change, we must respect nature and live in harmony with it,” he said. “We must promote the idea of nature and emphasize climate security.”

This open avowal of the risks of climate change may be becoming a trend in the country known for its tight-lipped bureaucracy. Zheng’s statement comes just weeks after China’s new environment minister Chen Jining said that “Under the Dome,” an extremely popular documentary about Chinese air pollution, reflected “growing public concern over environmental protection and threats to human health.”

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