Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greens are starting to comment that China’s climate “leadership” seems to involve enormous investments in coal. But history suggests there is a solution to China’s growing PR problem.
Can China actually lead on climate change?
By Sam Geall
China is in the “driving seat” when it comes to “international co-operation” on climate, said President Xi Jinping at a major political meeting in Beijing ahead of the UN-led climate talks in Bonn last week, the first annual meeting of the negotiations since President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement.
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So, is China ready to lead on climate? Not yet.
Fossil fuel use maintains social stability
To assume a real leadership role, China needs not only to fulfil its Paris pledges — no small challenge, given the difficulty of shifting its huge economy away from a reliance on coal-fired energy — but also to demonstrate a strategy for overseas investment that is consistent with its environmental ambitions.
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On the international front, as China’s energy-intensive sectors slow, there is a risk that companies such as those producing the technology to mine and burn coal find an escape valve for overcapacity by exporting capital and technology outside China’s borders, driving carbon-intensive growth in other countries, particularly along the so-called “Belt and Road” trade routes in central, south and South-East Asia.
From 2000 to 2016, 66 per cent of power sector lending from Chinese banks went into coal projects, according to Boston University.
In Turkey, Chinese companies have signed agreements worth billions of dollars to construct coal-fired power stations.
In Pakistan, China has also approved a US$1.2 billion investment for coal mining in the Thar Desert and the construction of 660 megawatt coal-fired power generators.
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The solution is obvious.
In 2006, Al Gore’s PR people justified his $30,000 annual home electricity bill, his enormous personal carbon footprint, on the basis of all the green advocacy he performs and the carbon offsets he purchases.
If China splashes more money on purchasing carbon offsets and other green projects, and continues to vocally support the global climate movement, greens will in my opinion likely apply the same standards as they applied to Al Gore – they will likely judge that China has done enough to mitigate the harm caused by their coal investments.
“Pollution in China is actually hard to get real facts on it’s a competition between heating and industries and probably varies from city to city. We know Beijing’s is mainly Industrial because of the shutdown they did for the olympics.”
It is actually very sad that our mainstream media have managed to distort key facts. First, Beijing has not only reduced the operation of industrial plants, but also the operation of stoves, whether private or industrial. Furthermore, in Beijing no cars, except the “guests”, the nomenklatura and the army were moved. In addition, the amount of smog in the Beijing area is lowest in July and August, the months with the highest rainfall. And rain washes out the smog. The Chinese did one more thing by moving in with an army of green-robed weathersoldiers of 32,000 men whose sole job was to manipulate the weather. No one knows if this worked. In any case, China and Russia have the most experience in local weather manipulation worldwide.
Good points and you can see why it’s so hard for outside parties to understand it and we get these superficial results.
“but also to demonstrate a strategy for overseas investment that is consistent with its environmental ambitions.”
Have they ever matched their actions with their “environmental ambitions”?
Does anyone else think that Chinese and Russian “leaders” must be laughing their asses off at the credulity of American thought leaders and leftist crybaby climate journalists?
China IS meeting all their Paris Agreement commitments. All of them. Because they don’t have to do JACK SQUAT until 2030. They can build as many coal plants as they want and still be meeting their commitments. And they can lord this superiority over us as they’re flooding American markets with cheap solar panels because they make money selling them to us, not because they believe in solar power. And yet our dumb ass lefties keep saying they’re the “leading the world” in renewables and believing that nation is a model to be followed, and that what Donald Trump is bravely trying to do in facing down the fear mongering BS is not leadership.
Meanwhile, Russia is promoting and financing many of the anti-fracking protests around the world so THEIR natural gas can be sold at a higher price! Wake up, all you dumb-ass lefties. Try to see the world as it is, not as you want it to be while you’re under the influence of magical unicorn farts.