China is now the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, surpassing even the United States.And China is feeling the negative impacts of global warming.

Scientists recently discovered that temperatures in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, know as ‘the roof of the earth’ are increasing.

Studies show that the temperature has increased by 0.2 degrees Celsius in the last 30 years, and while it doesn’t seem like much, the effects on the environment have been significant.

Glaciers are melting, grasslands are disappearing and as Elise Potaka found out one of China’s most revered lakes is shrinking.

Looking out across Qinghai Lake from a high vantage point, it looks more like an ocean. Taking up around 5 000 square kilometres, it’s China’s largest inland salt lake.

But since the 1970’s, Qinghai Lake’s water level has dropped by three metres.

One of the lake’s biggest attractions is Niao Dao, or Bird Island, a breeding ground for over 160 species of birds.

But as He Yubang, deputy director general of the lake’s nature reserve administration points out, it’s no longer an island. The water level has dropped so low, that Bird Island is now connected to the mainland.

He Yubang says that as the water level has decreased, new islands have emerged and others islands have joined together to make larger islands.

While small dams and agriculture are to blame for some of the water loss, most experts in the field agree that here on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, global warming is also having a huge impact.

Dr Li Diqiang has been doing conservation research around the lake for over ten years.

“The climate has changed a lot, generally it’s becoming drier. In my research I’ve found that a lot of wetlands have disappeared, many bird habitats are also getting drier, and the desert is expanding.�

As we drive around the western edge of the lake, huge sandhills rise are visible – in some places they reach the water’s edge. Our driver says that when she first visited the lake many years ago, there were no sandhills in this area.

But Qinghai Lake is not the only thing shrinking in the area. High up on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, glaciers are also melting.

The Chinese Academy of Science last year estimated that China’s biggest glacier is reducing at a rate of 7 % per year.

Li Yan, Greenpeace China’s climate and energy campaigner, says that these changes high up on the plateau are also affecting the waterways below.

“The permafrost on the plateau is also thawing and because of all this, the water level in the lakes and rivers is decreasing and some of them have already disappeared in the past several decades.�

As the lakes and rivers dry up, desertification is now becoming a big problem on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau – not just for the wildlife in the area, but also for the people.

“Actually desertification is happening across the place. And some of the villagers there, they live on herding and now since the grasslands lost their moisture and their soil, and have become desert, then some of the villagers have had to give up their hometown and move to other places. So they became the climate refugees.�

Last month China released it’s first ever national climate change strategy.

In its summary, the government said China’s average national temperature has increased by 0.5 – 0.8 % in the last 100 years, and that coastal waters have risen 2.5 mm.

Both of these figures are slightly higher than the global average.

The government also noted that floods and droughts are becoming more severe and the term “climate refugee� is taking on a new significance.

Back at Bird Island inside the monitoring station, He Yubang points out the significance of the fresh waters and wetland areas at the very edge of the lake. This is where the birds come to breed and feed their young.

If these areas continue to disappear, the birds will also face the challenge of having to find a new home.

Or they may just be among China’s first climate change casualties.