![Smog hangs over a construction site in Weifang city, Shandong province, Oct 16. 2015. Air quality went down in many parts of China since Oct 15 and most cities are shrounded by haze. [Photo/IC]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/chinese-haze-city.jpg?quality=83)
Chinese Chief Climate Negotiator Xie Zhenhua has expressed skepticism about President-elect Trump’s commitment to keep his campaign promises, claiming that Trump has “softened his tone” on Climate Change, in the face of Chinese and international pressure.
Trump warming to reality of climate change, says senior Chinese official
Beijing’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, talks down fears that joint leadership shown by China and the US will be reversed under new president.
China’s chief climate negotiator has attempted to calm fears that Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House will spell disaster for the fight against climate change.
Trump, who has dismissed climate change as “bullshit” and a Chinese hoax, will become the first climate sceptic to occupy the highest office in the US when he is sworn in on Friday.
Climate scientists and campaigners have expressed alarm at the impact the presence of so many climate deniers and environmental enemies in Trump’s cabinet could have on efforts to prevent catastrophic and irreversible global warming.
But speaking to the government-run China Daily newspaper, China’s special representative for climate change, Xie Zhenhua, played down such concerns.
Xie reaffirmed Beijing’s “firm attitude” towards fighting global warming and noted that the incoming US president had “softened his tone on whether climate change is real” following his election in November.
In an interview with the New York Times after his shock victory Trump said he had an “open mind” about how he would approach the issue and conceded there was “some connectivity” between global warming and human activity.
Xie, a Communist party veteran who spent more than a decade at the helm of China’s environmental agency, told the China Daily the global momentum behind the push towards a low carbon future was now such that no one person was capable of halting progress.
“Industrial upgrades aiming for more sustainable growth is a global trend … It is not something that can be reversed by a single political leader,” he was quoted as saying.
…
It is possible Xie Zhenhua is simply playing to his home audience, but I think it more likely the Chinese still don’t fully understand Western politics.
Everyone assumes the head of a dictatorship like China is all powerful, but in my opinion this is often not the case. Most Chinese leaders have very limited freedom to act. Leaders of dictatorships have no legitimacy, so they inspire no real loyalty – one misstep, and they are torn down and replaced by their ambitious underlings.
The American system doesn’t work this way. Trump is currently more powerful, and has more freedom to implement his policies, than any Chinese leader since Mao, because Trump has something which no mainland Chinese politician in living memory has ever experienced – a mandate from the people.
Climate negotiator
Climate denier
Carbon pollution
Fighting global warming
All the jargon contains a tone of nonsense. My favorite that summarizes the most is “consensus” which is blatantly a political term.
Heh, Zhenhua reassures the Davos crowd that they can keep investing in Chinese green industry. I hope they are sufficiently reassured.
========
Trump’s trump card to revive the economy is to resume fossil fuel extraction and provide industry with competitive energy. He is not interested in global anything, especially wealth redistribution, unless it brings an advantage to America.
The Chinese people fear instability. Confucian culture is deeply ingrained in them. They will support their leaders unless the wheels really start coming off. Mind you, that could happen if President Trump keeps his promises about bringing jobs back to America.
More interesting than Trump’s CAGW policy is his policy on ‘one China’. In other words, he doesn’t support China absorbing Taiwan. Perhaps one reason he’s warm to Putin is that he seeks support in an eventual confrontation with China.
google “river pollution in china” go to images..
China has FAR greater problems to fix that WASTING money and time on unreliables.
Ah Yes…China…the great ANTI-Socialist experiment
Send the EPA over there…they could advise….they have form.
Well, If “Form follows Substance” the EPA’s Form will follow the Air in China as Substance
China probably realizes that CO2 is a major card in the ill-conceived, USA fight-climate-change game, and they only conflate pollution and CO2 concentration in word games to make themselves look better, while continuing to be the worst offender, where REAL pollution is concerned.
Too many people seem to be failing to make distinctions between exactly what kinds of substances are in the air and HOW MUCH of these substances are really critical issues.
To include CO2 in the same breath (literally) as PM2.5 is about a 1 on the “stupidometer”, where a 10 is smartest. To include a small concentration of PM2.5 in the same context as China’s massive concentration of PM2.5 (as if a little is equally as bad as a lot) also registers pretty low.
First prove that PM 2.5 is a problem. So far it is a non-issue. It has a body count of zero so far.
The Chinese don’t fully understand Hollywood either…
Climate Chang????
“The First International School on Climate System And Climate Chang (ISCS)”
(repeated in the 1st paragraph, as well)
Apparently authors Yan Zhang and Yiming Liu don’t understand English spelling either….
It’s a hope and chang thing.
I though Chang was the third author.
Xie is his family name. Zhang and Liu are other family names. It’s often confusing with Chinese names as what would be our last name comes first.
Hilarious 🙂
China must have found the missing data and processes that show humans are responsible for global warming and that it is reversible if we just do what they say.
Meanwhile cold arctic are is bludgeoning the lower latitudes, and that cold air is being replaced with warmer air (nature abhors a vacuum) and that energy is surely headed to the blackness of space (energy lost to space grows with the amount of energy available to lose), there being no energy source during winter to preserve it.
I think you need to check out the energy dynamics of the current arctic situation, where a string of storms has lead to warm and wet air over the pole for much of the winter so far… we have seen places in the dark of the arctic winter night with air temps at or just above freezing point, not many degrees below.
The ocean there is not shedding its warmth into space just now.
So you admit, it has nothing to do with global warming.
Wind patterns are pushing warm air up their instead of allowing the cold air to sit in place.
PS: Since you make a point of proving that you don’t know science.
The warmer the water is in the arctic, the more heat is being lost to space.
Griff, you have not thought through your assertion about heat transfer. The Arctic is shedding huge amounts of energy. Where do you think the warmer air came from?
“The ocean there is not shedding its warmth into space just now.”
You truly don’t have the first clue, have you? Talk about scientific illiteracy!
Have you apologised to Dr. Crockford for slandering her yet?
AS firm as 2030 can be
“Climate scientists and campaigners have expressed alarm at the impact the presence of so many climate deniers…” How do you say “bite me” in Mandarin?
A most polite way would be: 咬我 pronounced yao wah. An impolite way would be: 他妈的 pronounced ta ma de.
Show off
There is no global warming anymore. It looks most Chinese people dont understand the difference between AGW and pollution (fog)…
Sorry
I meant
(Smog)
China – promised to “only” increase CO2 by 50% to 100%
As the world’s largest CO2 “polluter” China demonstrated remarkable political acumen at Paris to be lauded for “only” increasing its CO2 emissions by 100% (or possibly by only 50%) while retaining its category of a “developing” nation! As such it exercises its privileged position and declares Trump to have “softened” his stance!
See: China’s Climate Plan, OCTOBER 27, 2015, By Paul Homewood
Thermalization of terrestrial EMR absorbed by CO2 and reverse thermalization, nearly all to the plethora of lower energy absorb/emit wavelength bands of water vapor, explain why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Discover what does cause climate change (98% match 1895-2015) at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
3 more days left then………
http://www.gifbin.com/bin/032011/1301329560_obama-locked-out-of-the-white-house.gif
LOL 🙂
There’s a similar clip regarding Bush Sr. trying to open a locked door. It happens.
just hours now….
[off-topic]
Would someone with more than my bare-minimum knowledge show this moron the errors in his thinking.
Link
[/off-topic]
Mother Nature does not do politics.
The proponents forget that sceptics will be heard and scientists who have been shut out of the trough or afraid to speak up will weigh in.
What did China do hack Trumps Email sever in his basement ? Or perhaps the CIA told them ?
Trump hasn’t rewritten his 100 day plan so it seems odd for someone in China to be drawing conclusions .
Wishful thinking . Looks like China has stopped building new illegal islands in the South China Sea too . NOT .
Why would you be building new islands barely above sea level if you honestly thought global warming was
going to raise the sea and submerge them ? Lets face it is all about China laughing in the face of the USA
for being stupid enough to send them $$ Billions to do absolutely nothing . … Well maybe just build a few more illegal islands .
If Trump backs off his election promise commitments it won’t matter what he does after the first 100 days .
Trump has been doing his obligatory calls to world leaders.
Whether he has called China yet, I don’t know.
If you believe this you probably believe china’s claims about its economy.
The CIA was shocked to find out how bad their estimates of the Russian economy were, after the iron curtain fell.
They actually took the Russian claims seriously.
During the nuclear arms race, the Soviets were laughing at our intelligence community. The Soviets had a total, a grand total of 4 as in four. Anybody miss the war in Iraq? Let’s see we went in, along with the intelligence from other countries, that there were weapons of mass destruction there. Colin Powell was at the UN presenting the case. Anybody care to listen to Hans Bliks? Then they disassembled the government.
There are times when the leadership in this country is outstandingly stupid. Climate change anyone ?
The Chinese negotiator is just passing along NYT/MSM fake news. The Chinese leadership and the western Elites share a lot of traits, like spinning false narratives to influence others. Propaganda, in other words. Be skeptical of anything you hear from these sources.
We’ll get a pretty good indication of where Scott Pruitt stands on the subject of CAGW tomorrow in the Senate hearings. Let’s see how hysterical the Democrats get over it. It ought to be good for a few laughs and insights.
Look…
For the next 4 years, the MSM’s raison d’être is to utterly destroy Trump 24/7/365 x 4 years. PERIOD.
Every “news” (aka Fake News) item from here on needs to be viewed through that prism.
The purpose of this particular news story, is, as always, to hurt Trump and discourage his supporters.
Trump is NOT changing his views on CAGW. He’s playing head games … In business and politics, you don’t always show your hand.
Trump is most likely creating the impression that he’s changing his views on CAGW to provide cover while he and his team quietly devise ways to destroy it…
Leftist politicians have never seen anything like a Trump presidency, but they’ll soon find out.
Give Trump time, and remember Machiavelli’s famous line from The Prince, “For the vast majority of mankind accept appearances as though they were reality, and are influenced more by those things that seem than by those things that are.”
Trump is going to have a field day with Leftists and the MSM.
The next 4 years will be historic.
Make America Great Again!
Best gift Trump can offer China is Clean Air Act and less manufacturing in China.
I doubt that Trump has changed his opinion on global warming. I think it’s wishful thinking on the part of some people. He’s read the climate gate emails. When the AGW people come to you pretending that their science is correct after altering data to get the results you want, it’s a little difficult to believe anything they say is factual.
Evidently, by his comments, Trump read more of them I have.
must say
never thought I would admit this
but like Samurai I also think Trump is very clever/
don’t know yet though how he can bring jobs back lost due to robots?
20 years BMW here in my town had 3000 employees,
now it is 300,
yet they make more cars….
can anyone here perhaps update me on Trump’s current relationship with Cruz? [Cruz held a hearing on so-called global warming]
Henry commented: “…don’t know yet though how he can bring jobs back lost due to robots?…”
Hands on workers are not the whole picture. Think of the entire support chain required to get product to the end user. Financial, material, transportation, technology, housing, government, etc. Then think of putting that chain where there was nothing previously. Everyone has the same limitations posed by robots now getting to use the robots is the trick.
truth is that the pie of work is getting smaller and smaller
meaning less people will be able to buy your product;
a solution would be to reduce the work week to 4 days
[which would greatly stimulate the leisure industry]
if the Chinese would play along?
I doubt it.
I think that Janice Moore and ddpalmer are correct: The real agenda here is that China wants the US energy production to continue to be hamstrung by regulations that do not apply to China. While I am a _strong_ supporter of Taiwan, I think it would be excellent overall for mainland China to be able to purchase inexpensive petroleum products from the US…and would it not be terrifying to China for their populace to see that China could do this and did not? (Terrifying amounts of pollution are OK only if the alternative is no electricity, no civilization.)
Here we go: China has just announced the suspension of 104 planned and under-construction coal power projects, with a total capacity of 120 gigawatts
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/18/china-suspends-104-construction-coal-power-projects/
In October of last year, China already halted construction on 30 coal power plants totaling 17 GW, ten of which were already under construction.
china installed 34 GW of solar last year (pretty much equivalent to installed total for Germany)
Griff
I quote from your quote
”The analysis found that there was a significant chance that up to 210 GW worth of coal capacity might be completely unnecessary in 2020, if things continued apace.’
…..seems China has the same problems as us….
Just like I said, the pie of simple work that ‘most’ people can do or live with is getting smaller and smaller!
don’t know where we are going but it is not looking good from which every side you look at it.
Henry commented: “…the pie of simple work that ‘most’ people can do or live with is getting smaller and smaller..”
The “pie” as you call it is increasing with the population. The only thing that is getting smaller is the people’s ability to pay for a piece of that pie. China’s reduction in energy usage has nothing to do with their environmental efforts and everything to do with the global economy which is being usurped by the race to eliminate fossil fuels. They’ll soon understand that their economy is also limited by everyone else’s drop in productivity due to the lack of affordable energy.
@Mark
I largely agree with you that cheap affordable energy is in everybody’s interest.
GDP growth of most countries is in line with population growth/
what if [world] population growth decreases or starts decreasing?
Henry commented: “….what if [world] population growth decreases or starts decreasing?…”
It has been guessed that world population will level out. If/when that occurs energy use will still increase as the have nots play catch up. And there’s a lot of catching up to do. Meanwhile technology won’t stand still and today’s energy sources will be tomorrow’s history.