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    Steve Hanke says we're going to have one 'whopper' of a recession in 2023

    The U.S. economy is going to fall into a recession next year, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, and that’s not necessarily because of higher interest rates.
    “We will have a recession because we’ve had five months of zero M2 growth, money supply growth, and the Fed isn’t even looking at it,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.
    Meanwhile, inflation is going to remain high because of “unprecedented growth” in money supply in the United States, Hanke said.

    The U.S. economy is going to fall into a recession next year, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, and that’s not necessarily because of higher interest rates.
    “We will have a recession because we’ve had five months of zero M2 growth, money supply growth, and the Fed isn’t even looking at it,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.

    Market watchers use the broad M2 measure as an indicator of total money supply and future inflation. M2 includes cash, checking and savings deposits and money market securities.
    In recent months, money supply has stagnated and that’s likely to lead to an economic slowdown, Hanke warned.
    “We’re going to have one whopper of a recession in 2023,” he said.
    Meanwhile, inflation is going to remain high because of “unprecedented growth” in money supply in the United States, Hanke said.
    Historically, there has never been “sustained inflation” that isn’t the result of excess growth in money supply, and pointed out that money supply in the U.S. saw “unprecedented growth” when Covid began two years ago, he said.

    “That is why we are having inflation now, and that’s why, by the way, we will continue to have inflation through 2023 going into probably 2024,” he added.
    In 2020, CNBC reported that the growth in money supply could lead to high inflation.
    “The bottom line is we’re going to have stagflation — we’re going to have the inflation because of this excess that’s now coming into the system,” he added.
    “The problem we have is that the [Fed Chair Jerome Powell] does not understand, even at this point, what the causes of inflation are and were,” Hanke said.
    “He’s still going on about supply-side glitches,” he said, adding that “he has failed to tell us that inflation is always caused by excess growth in the money supply, turning the printing presses on.”
    Powell, in his policy speech at the annual Jackson Hole economic symposium on Friday, said he views the high inflation in the U.S. as a “product of strong demand and constrained supply, and that the Fed’s tools work principally on aggregate demand.”
    CNBC has reached out to the Federal Reserve for comment.

    ‘Sacrificial lamb’

    David Rosenberg, president of Rosenberg Research, also expressed skepticism over the Fed’s direction, but in other respects. He said the Fed is now “more than happy” to overtighten to get inflation down quickly.

    “Overtighten means that if the economy slips into a recession, you know — so be it,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday, adding that Powell said this is short-term pain for long-term gain.
    He said he’s “a little disappointed” that the central bank is chasing lagging indicators like the unemployment rate and inflation, but that the Fed is “not going to take any chances” after being “thoroughly embarrassed” for calling inflation transitory.
    “[Powell] basically said the economy will be, near term, a sacrificial lamb,” Rosenberg said.
    “I think this Fed, after being on the wrong side of the call for the past say 12 to 15 months, are going to need to see probably at least six months of intense disinflation in the price data before they call it quits,” he added.

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    California Senate Passes Bill to Regulate Fast-Food Industry

    If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the measure would create a state council to establish minimum pay and safety conditions on an industrywide basis.The California State Senate passed a bill on Monday that could transform the way the service sector is regulated by creating a council to set wages and improve working conditions for fast-food workers.The measure, known as A.B. 257, passed by a vote of 21 to 12. The State Assembly had already approved a version of the measure, and it now requires the approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has not indicated whether he will sign it. The bill was vehemently opposed by the fast-food industry.The bill could herald an important step toward sectoral bargaining, in which workers and employers negotiate compensation and working conditions on an industrywide basis, as opposed to enterprise bargaining, in which workers negotiate with individual companies at individual locations.“In my view, it’s one of the most significant pieces of state employment legislation that’s passed in a long time,” said Kate Andrias, a labor law expert at Columbia University. “It gives workers a formal seat at the table with employers to set standards across the industry that’s not limited to setting minimum wages.”While sectoral bargaining is common in Europe, it is rare in the United States, though certain industries, like auto manufacturing, have arrangements that approximate it. The California bill wouldn’t bring true sectoral bargaining — which involves workers negotiating directly with employers, instead of a government entity setting broad standards — but incorporates crucial elements of the model.The bill would set up a 10-member council that would include worker and employer representatives and two state officials, and that would review pay and safety standards across the restaurant industry.The council could issue health, safety and anti-discrimination regulations and set an industrywide minimum wage. The legislation caps the figure at $22 an hour next year, when the statewide minimum wage will be $15.50. The bill also requires annual cost-of-living adjustments for any new wage floor beginning in 2024.Restaurant chains with at least 100 locations nationwide would come under the council’s jurisdiction — including companies like Starbucks that own and operate their stores as well as franchisees of large companies like McDonald’s. Hundreds of thousands of workers in the state would be affected.The council would shut down after six years but could be reconvened by the Legislature.Mary Kay Henry, the president of the nearly two-million-member Service Employees International Union, which pushed for the legislation, said it was critical because of the challenges that workers have faced when trying to change policies by unionizing store by store.“The stores get closed or the franchise owner sells or the multinational pulls the lease for the real estate,” Ms. Henry said. Franchise industry officials say it is extremely rare to close a store in response to a union campaign. Starbucks recently closed several corporate-owned stores across the country where workers had unionized or were trying to unionize, citing safety concerns like crime, though the company also closed a number of nonunion stores for the same stated reasons. Industry officials argue that the bill will raise labor costs, and therefore menu prices, when inflation is already a widespread concern. A recent report by the Center for Economic Forecasting and Development at the University of California, Riverside, estimated that employers would pass along about one-third of any increase in labor compensation to consumers.“We are pulling the fire alarm in all states to wake our members up about what’s going on in California,” said Matthew Haller, the president of the International Franchise Association, an industry group that opposes the bill. “We are concerned about other states — the multiplier effect of something like this.”Ingrid Vilorio, who works at a Jack in the Box franchise near Oakland, Calif., and who pressed legislators to back the bill during several trips to Sacramento, the state capital, said she believed the measure would lead to improvements in safety — for example, through rules that require employers to quickly repair or replace broken equipment like grills and fryers, which can cause burns.Ms. Vilorio said she also hoped the council would crack down on problems like sexual harassment, wage theft and denial of paid sick leave. She said she and her co-workers went on strike last year to demand masks, hand sanitizer and the Covid-19 sick pay they were entitled to receive. Jack in the Box did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Haller said state agencies were already authorized to crack down on employers who violate laws governing the payment of wages, safety, discrimination and harassment.“The state has the existing tools at its disposal,” Mr. Haller said. “They should be more fully funded rather than put a punitive target on a subsection of a sector.”Mr. Haller and other opponents have cited a critique by the state’s Department of Finance arguing that the bill “could lead to a fragmented regulatory and legal environment for employers” and “exacerbate existing delays” in enforcement by increasing the burden on agencies that oversee existing rules. The bill does not provide additional funding for enforcement agencies.David Weil, who under President Barack Obama oversaw the agency that enforces the federal minimum wage, said that, while funding is critical for labor regulators, the new council could benefit a broad swath of workers even without additional funding. For example, he said, raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers could increase wages for workers in other sectors, like retail, that compete with fast-food restaurants for labor.But Dr. Weil agreed that creating new standards in the fast-food industry could end up drawing resources away from the enforcement of labor and employment laws in other industries where workers may be equally vulnerable.Opponents managed to secure a number of concessions in the State Senate, such as preventing the council from creating sick-leave or paid-time-off benefits, or rules that restrict scheduling.The Senate also eliminated a so-called joint liability provision, which would have allowed regulators to hold parent companies like McDonald’s liable for violations by franchise owners. More

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    Biden’s Big Dreams Meet the Limits of ‘Imperfect’ Tools

    The student loan plan is the latest example of Democrats practicing the art of the possible on the nation’s most pressing economic challenges and ending up with risky or patchwork solutions.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s move this week to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers and reduce future loan payments for millions more comes with a huge catch, economists warn: It does almost nothing to limit the skyrocketing cost of college and could very well fuel even faster tuition increases in the future.That downside is a direct consequence of Mr. Biden’s decision to use executive action to erase some or all student debt for individuals earning $125,000 a year or less, after failing to push debt forgiveness through Congress. Experts warn that schools could easily game the new structure Mr. Biden has created for higher education financing, cranking up prices and encouraging students to load up on debt with the expectation that it will never need to be paid in full.It is the latest example, along with energy and health care, of Democrats in Washington seeking to address the nation’s most pressing economic challenges by practicing the art of the possible — and ending up with imperfect solutions.There are practical political limits to what Mr. Biden and his party can accomplish in Washington.Democrats have razor-thin margins in the House and Senate. Their ranks include liberals who favor wholesale overhaul of sectors like energy and education and centrists who prefer more modest changes, if any. Republicans have opposed nearly all of Mr. Biden’s attempts, along with those of President Barack Obama starting more than a decade ago, to expand the reach of government into the economy. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has sought to curb what it sees as executive branch overreach on issues like climate change.As a result, much of the structure of key markets, like college and health insurance, remains intact. Mr. Biden has scored victories on climate, health care and now — pending possible legal challenges — student debt, often by pushing the boundaries of executive authority. Even progressives calling on him to do more agree he could not impose European-style government control over the higher education or health care systems without the help of Congress.The president has dropped entire sections of his policy agenda as he sought paths to compromise. He has been left to leverage what appears to be the most powerful tool currently available to Democrats in a polarized nation — the spending power of the federal government — as they seek to tackle the challenges of rising temperatures and impeded access to higher education and health care.Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who consulted with Mr. Biden’s aides on the student loan issue and supported his announcement this week, said in an interview that the debt cancellation plans were necessarily incomplete because Mr. Biden’s executive authority could reach only so far into the higher education system.“This is an imperfect tool,” Mr. Dube said, “that is however one that is at the president’s disposal, and he is using it.”But because the policies pursued by Mr. Biden and his party do comparatively little to affect the prices consumers pay in some parts of those markets, many experts warn, they risk raising costs to taxpayers and, in some cases, hurting some consumers they are trying to help.Mr. Biden’s plan would forgive up to $10,000 in student debt for individual borrowers earning $125,000 a year or less and households earning up to $250,000, with another $10,000 for Pell grant recipients.Cheriss May for The New York Times“You’ve done nothing that changes the structure of education” with Mr. Biden’s student loan moves, said R. Glenn Hubbard, a Columbia University economist who was the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. “All you’re going to do is raise the price.”Mr. Hubbard said Mr. Biden’s team had made similar missteps on energy, health care, climate and more. “I understand the politics, so I’m not making a naïve comment here,” Mr. Hubbard said. “But fixing through subsidies doesn’t get you there — or it gets you such market distortions, you really ought to worry.”Mr. Biden said on Wednesday that his administration would forgive up to $10,000 in student debt for individual borrowers earning $125,000 a year or less and households earning up to $250,000, with another $10,000 in relief for people from low-income families who received Pell grants in school.What’s in the Inflation Reduction ActCard 1 of 8What’s in the Inflation Reduction ActA substantive legislation. More

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    Fed Chair Signals More Rate Increases Ahead, Shaking Wall Street

    JACKSON, Wyo. — Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, delivered a sobering message on Friday, saying the Fed must continue to raise interest rates — and keep them elevated for a while — to bring the fastest inflation in decades back under control.The central bank’s campaign is likely to come at a cost to workers and overall growth, he acknowledged; but he argued that not acting would allow price increases to become a more permanent feature of the economy and prove even more painful down the road.Stock prices plunged in the wake of Mr. Powell’s comments, as investors digested his stern commitment to raising rates and choking back inflation even if doing so damages growth and causes unemployment to rise. The S&P 500 fell 3.4 percent, its worst daily showing since mid-June, and investors in bonds began to bet that the central bank will raise rates by more than they had been expecting.Mr. Powell’s full-throated commitment to defeating inflation began to put to rest an idea that had been percolating among investors: that the central bank might lift rates slightly more this year but then begin to lower them again next year. Instead, the Fed chair echoed many of his colleagues in arguing that rates will need to go higher, and will need to stay in economy-restricting territory for a while, until inflation is consistently coming down.“Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance,” Mr. Powell said in a speech on Friday. “While higher interest rates, slower growth and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses.”He then added: “These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation.”Mr. Powell was speaking at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual conference near Jackson, Wyo., in a speech that is typically his most closely watched appearance of the year. That prominent platform gave him an opportunity to clearly signal the Fed’s commitment to wrestle inflation lower to markets and the public, which he did in his terse and to-the-point eight-minute speech.“The process won’t be painless, and I think he’s being more upfront about that,” said Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro Research. “The likelihood of recession is rising, because that’s the solution to the inflation problem — that’s what they’re telling you.”While central bankers have spent much of the past year saying they hope to set the economy down gently — and not tip it into recession — Mr. Powell’s remarks made it clear that a bumpy landing would be a price worth paying to return price stability to the United States.The Fed has lifted interest rates from near zero in March to a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent, and investors have been waiting for any hint at how fast and far the Fed will raise rates in coming months. Higher interest rates make it more expensive to borrow money to build a house or expand a business, slowing economic activity and cooling down the job market. That can eventually help reduce demand enough that supply catches up and price increases slow down.Mr. Powell did not say what pace lies ahead, suggesting that Fed officials will watch incoming data as they decide whether to make a third straight “unusually” large three-quarter-point rate increase at their Sept. 20-21 meeting. He reiterated that the Fed was likely to slow its increases “at some point,” but he also said central bankers had more work to do when it came to constraining the economy and bringing inflation back under control.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5Inflation F.A.Q.What is inflation? More

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    Watch Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speak live at Jackson Hole

    [The stream is slated to start at 10 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]
    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivers a speech at the central bank’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday at 10.a.m. ET.

    Market participants have eagerly awaited Powell’s comments, searching for guidance on the extent to which policymakers will push against inflation and the criteria the central bank will refer to as it makes its decisions.
    Powell’s comments come at a time when the Fed has taken drastic steps to tamp down rising prices. Though investors are looking for new guidance from the central bank leader, Powell is largely expected to issue the same inflation-fighting message, stressing that the Fed will use its rate-hiking power to rein in prices.
    Powell’s speech follows the release of one of the Fed’s favorite inflation metrics earlier Friday: the personal consumption expenditures price index. July’s PCE reading showed a year-over-year gain of 6.3% in July, down from 6.8% in June. The index slipped 0.1% month over of month.The core PCE index, which excludes food and energy prices, climbed 4.6% on an annualized basis, and rose 0.1% month over month.

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    U.S. income growth slowed in July, and consumer spending barely grew.

    Americans’ incomes rose more slowly last month — but, for once, those gains weren’t swallowed up by higher prices.Personal income, after taxes, rose 0.2 percent in July, the Commerce Department said Friday. That was slower than the 0.7 percent gain in June. But while the gains in June were more than offset by sharply higher prices, in July, Americans saw their inflation-adjusted incomes rise 0.3 percent as lower gas prices led to a respite from inflation.Consumer spending also cooled in July, as Americans pulled back on purchases of goods. Overall consumer spending rose 0.1 percent, the weakest showing since a decline in December and down from a 1 percent gain in June. Spending on services, which has rebounded sharply as the pandemic has ebbed, continued to rise, but more slowly than in prior months.The moderation in spending could be welcome news for policymakers at the Federal Reserve, who have been trying to tamp down demand without pushing the recovery into reverse.Income and spending, adjusted for inflation, are also among the indicators that economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research use to determine when a recession has begun. The gains in July are the latest evidence that the economy, though slowing, is not in a recession.Economists warn that the reprieve from inflation may prove temporary. But they say households should be able to keep spending as long as employers keep hiring and pay keeps rising. Income from wages and salaries rose 0.8 percent in July, the biggest gain since February. The Labor Department will provide data on employment and wages for August at the end of next week.Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm KPMG, said the underlying strength of the consumer economy reflected a handoff from the government, which helped support households and businesses with record spending earlier in the pandemic, to the private sector, which has roared back over the past year and a half.“We have seen the private sector really pick up that baton, which has been amazing,” she said. More

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    The Fed’s favorite inflation gauge cooled in July.

    The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation eased in July as gas prices fell following a sharp run-up earlier in the summer, a widely expected moderation that could nevertheless provide policymakers positive news as they battle the most rapid price gains in decades.The Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which the Fed tries to keep climbing at a 2 percent annual rate on average over time, was up by 6.3 percent in July compared to a year earlier. While that is still far more inflation than the central bank wants, it is a slowdown from 6.8 percent increase over the year through June.And on a monthly basis, the price index declined by 0.1 percent, an even bigger pullback than economists had expected.Because part of the decline was a result of falling gas prices, which are volatile and could jump again, officials may not take the cool-down in headline inflation alone as a major signal. But economists closely watch a so-called core inflation measure that strips out fuel and food prices to get a better sense of underlying price pressures, and that measure also offered some encouraging news.Core inflation slowed to a 4.6 percent annual increase, compared with 4.8 percent in June. And on a monthly basis, the core index slowed to a 0.1 percent gain, a pullback from the prior month and less than the 0.2 percent economists in a Bloomberg survey had expected.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5Inflation F.A.Q.What is inflation? More

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    China’s Record Drought is Drying Rivers and Feeding Its Coal Habit

    Dry weather in southwestern China has crippled huge hydroelectric dams, forcing cities to impose rolling blackouts and driving up the country’s use of coal.HONG KONG — Car assembly plants and electronics factories in southwestern China have closed for lack of power. Owners of electric cars are waiting overnight at charging stations to recharge their vehicles. Rivers are so low there that ships can no longer carry supplies.A record-setting drought and an 11-week heat wave are causing broad disruption in a region that depends on dams for more than three-quarters of its electricity generation. The factory shutdowns and logistical delays are hindering China’s efforts to revive its economy as the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, prepares to claim a third term in power this autumn.The ruling Communist Party is already struggling to reverse a slowdown in China, the world’s second largest economy, caused by the country’s strict Covid lockdowns and a slumping real estate market. Young people are finding it hard to get jobs, while uncertainty over the economic outlook is compelling residents to save instead of spend, and to hold off on buying new homes.Now, the extreme heat is adding to frustration by snarling power supplies, threatening crops and setting off wildfires. Reduced electricity from hydroelectric dams has prompted China to burn more coal, a large contributor to air pollution and to greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.Many cities around the country have been forced to impose rolling blackouts or limit energy use. In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, several neighborhoods went without electricity for more than 10 hours a day.An electronic billboard shut down to save energy in Chengdu, China.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVera Wang, a Chengdu resident, said that just to charge her electric car, her boyfriend waited in a long line overnight at a charging station that was only partly operating. It was 4 a.m. by the time he reached the front of the line.“The line was so long that it extended from the underground parking lot to the road outside,” she said.The heat wave has scorched China for more than two months, stretching from Sichuan in the southwest to the country’s eastern coast and sending the mercury above 104 degrees on many days. In Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in the southwest with around 20 million people, the temperature soared to 113 degrees last week, the first time such a high reading had been recorded in a Chinese city outside the western desert region of Xinjiang.The searing heat set off wildfires in the mountains and forests on Chongqing’s outskirts, where thousands of firefighters and volunteers have worked to put out blazes. Residents said the air smelled of acrid smoke.The drought has dried up dozens of rivers and reservoirs in the region and cut Sichuan’s hydropower generation capacity by half, hurting industrial production. Volkswagen closed its sprawling, 6,000-employee factory in Chengdu for the past week and a half, and Toyota also temporarily suspended operations at its assembly plant.A villager attempting to put out a bush fire with a mop in his field during a drought in Xinyao, a village in Jiangxi Province, on Thursday.Thomas Peter/ReutersFoxconn, the giant Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, and CATL, the world’s largest maker of electric car batteries, have both curtailed production at factories in the vicinity.In Ezhou, a city in central China near Wuhan, the Yangtze River is now at its lowest level for this time of year since record-keeping began there in 1865. People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Communist Party, reported on Aug. 19 that the Yangtze River had fallen to the same average level it normally reaches at the end of the winter dry season.Read More About Extreme WeatherRelics of the Past: As a drought starves Europe’s rivers and brings water levels down, shipwrecks, bombs and objects dating back thousands of years are turning up at the water’s surface.Preparing for Disaster: With the cost and frequency of weather-driven disasters on the rise,  taking steps to be ready financially is more crucial than ever. Here are some tips.Wildfires Out West: California and other Western states are particularly prone to increasingly catastrophic blazes. There are four key factors.Colorado River: With water levels near their lowest point ever, Arizona and Nevada faced new restrictions on the amount of water they can pump out of the river.But the disruptions from the hydropower shortfall are being felt far from the southwest, including in China’s eastern cities, which are buyers of hydropower. Some factories and commercial buildings in cities like Hangzhou and Shanghai are rationing electricity.Kevin Ni, an online marketing worker in Hangzhou, said that his office was stifling because few air-conditioners were allowed to run.“We have to eat ice pops and drink iced drinks,” he said. “I just put my hands on the ice pops, that cools me the most.”A satellite image showing the Yangtze River last August between Huanggang and Ezhou, in Hubei Province, China.Planet LabsThe same view this month, showing how much lower the water levels are than in the previous year.Planet LabsThe falling water levels in major rivers that serve the region’s main transport hubs have also led to delays elsewhere in the supply chain. The Yangtze River has receded so much that many oceangoing ships can no longer reach upstream ports. The upper Yangtze basin normally gets half its entire annual rainfall just in July and August, so the failure of this year’s rains may mean a long wait for more water.That is forcing China to divert large numbers of trucks to carry their cargo. A single ship can require 500 or more trucks to move its cargo.“We’re losing a few months of really efficient shipping,” said Even Rogers Pay, a food and agriculture analyst at Trivium, a Beijing consulting firm.The heat wave and drought are also starting to drive food prices higher in China, especially for fruit and vegetables. Farmers’ fields and orchards are wilting. Sichuan is a leading grower in China of apples, plums and other fruit, and fruit trees that die could take five years to replace. The price of bok choy, a popular cabbage, has nearly doubled in Wuhan this month.“That’s going to create more economic pain, which is the last thing the leadership wants to see,” Ms. Pay said.Ships sailing on the Yangtze River in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, on Tuesday. The Yangtze River has receded so low that many oceangoing ships can no longer reach upstream ports.Alex Plavevski/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and four other departments issued an emergency notice warning on Tuesday that the drought posed a “severe threat” to China’s autumn harvest. China’s cabinet on Wednesday approved $1.5 billion for disaster relief and assistance to rice farmers and another $1.5 billion for overall farm subsidies.The government has urged local officials to seek out more water sources and allocate more electricity to support farmers and promote the planting of leafy vegetables, which are highly perishable, in big cities. Fire trucks have been used to spray water on fields and deliver water to pig farms.The extreme weather sweeping across China also has potential implications for the world’s efforts to halt climate change. Beijing has sought to offset at least part of the lost hydropower from the drought by ramping up the use of coal-fired power plants. China’s domestic mining of coal has been at or near record levels, and customs data shows that its imports of coal from Russia reached a new high last month.But China’s reliance on the fossil fuel raises questions about its commitment to slowing the growth of its carbon emissions.“In the short term in China, the very, very painful realization is that only coal can serve as the base” for the electricity supply, said Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing environmental group. Sichuan Province has lured energy-intensive industries like chemical manufacturing for many years with extremely low electricity prices, he said, and some of these industries have squandered power through inefficiency.A dry vegetable plot at a farm in Longquan, a village in Chongqing.Mark Schiefelbein/Associated PressMr. Ma struck an optimistic note, however, about the direction of China’s climate strategy, saying that in the medium term, “China is very committed to carbon targets and renewable energy.”The government has sought to mitigate the effects of global warming on its economy. The National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning ministry, set up a working group last winter to analyze the effects of climate change on water-related industries like hydroelectric dams.While such efforts may help China preserve the viability of renewable energy programs, they may not prompt China to limit the burning of coal this year as a quick fix, said Ed Cunningham, the director of the Asia Energy and Sustainability Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School.“They’re much more comfortable with coal,” Mr. Cunningham said, “and the reality is that when there’s a shortage of hydro, they use coal.”Muyi Xiao More