Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
On December 19, 2017 the L A Times published a front page article hyping that “China launches the world’s biggest carbon trading market” with great praise for China providing climate leadership. The Times article offered the following highly politicalized climate alarmist characterization of this stupendous event.
“Experts say that China is assuming the climate leadership role from the U.S., which has been retreating on its climate advocacy since President Trump’s inauguration in January. Trump, who has repeatedly cast doubt on the existence of human-induced climate change, announced in June that the U.S. would quit the Paris climate accord; on Monday, in a wide-ranging national security speech, he dropped climate change from a list of global threats.
California is among several states that have shunned Washington’s position on the issue; in June, Gov. Jerry Brown traveled to China and signed a nonbinding agreement with Beijing to limit greenhouse gases.”
The Times article quoted the Environmental Defense Fund which noted that:
“Keohane said the plan could enable China — the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter — to formulate even more ambitious climate goals in coming years.”
The only word of caution provided in this otherwise bubbly Times article about China’s great world climate leadership as demonstrated by the new carbon market was:
“Experts say the carbon market’s success is not assured — China is beleaguered by limited monitoring and verification capabilities, a lack of transparency, and a politically influenced legal system.”
Wow! That’s quite a big qualifier.
Completely missing from the L A Times article was the rather critical point that the market isn’t actually starting and no ones when it will start as noted in another article discussing China’s new market which revealed this significant point which the Times carefully concealed from its piece.
“Trading won’t start on Dec. 19, because the government is only now announcing detailed plans of how the market will operate. It’s not clear when exactly trading will start, but the Guangzhou China Emission Exchange director expects the price to rise gradually to about 300 yuan ($45) per ton.”
This more candid article also offered the following guess about what the price per ton of carbon might be whenever or if ever the market opens.
“A director at the China Emission Exchange in Guangzhou, who runs the Guangdong province’s carbon market and who asked not to be named, predicts the initial price will be about 50 yuan ($7.50) per ton of emissions.”
Additionally the article noted that these carbon prices are far below the so called social costs of carbon pushed by climate alarmists.
“Economists estimate that every ton of carbon dioxide emitted today will likely cause $125 worth of damage to society in the future. This number is known as the social cost of carbon.”
In this most recent misleading climate alarmist article the L A Times is clearly showing its alarmism frustration as demonstrated by the fact that the Times hid critical information from the public.
This frustration is driven by the fact that the world is rapidly moving away from scientifically unsupported phony and purely politicalized climate alarmism polices.
Because of this reality the Times must push carefully contrived climate hype in its articles by making sure to conceal the reality of a dying climate alarmist cause emerging around the world.
How miraculous! The LA Times discovers the PRC has a non-transparent legal and political system. What next, a discovery water is wet?
Don’t forget that transparency isn’t needed when the State is as benevolent as China. Their government is won-der-ful and gives everything to the people … clean air, wealth, and health. The Premier is even capable of stopping the oceans from rising. The LA Times LOVES the Dear Leader of China, as much as they loved America’s last Dear Leader. Everyone should bow to the State and thank it for their very souls. Carbon Trading in China was the template Jerry Brown used to crush the Californian proletariat
Um, I think you are talking about N Korea.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Interesting that the LA Times also distributes a copy of “China Daily” with its deliveries.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/static_e/Contact_Us.html
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaDailyLosAngeles/
Seems the propaganda machine is trying to cover all the bases.
They need to tally the “Social cost of Stupidity”, as they are directly contributing to it with falsehoods and misinformation.
The LA Times rarely gets much correct and everything is an editorial. Correctness, it appears, doesn’t increase circulation.
IMHO the “news media” long ago ceased any efforts towards creating a more intelligent and informed public ( and hence credibility) and went solely after circulation and advertisement revenues. Their demise will be self-inflicted.
Everyone it seems has sunk to tabloid journalism.
Mr. President, suppose the Red Chinese try a sneak attack to steal our carbon trading credits? Suppose they bury some trading credits so that when we emerge from the mine shafts, they’ll immediately have a carbon trading advantage? Mr. President, WE MUST NOT ALLOW A CARBON TRADING CREDIT GAP!
Those [trigger warning] Chinese guys must have the most fun in their planning meetings, imagining how stupid the NY Times and LA Times are. I wonder if they have little friendly bets with each other, like I bet you 5000 yuan that I can write a press release that says XYZ, that will make it to page 1 on a weekday. Then all the other Chinese guys around the table get out their wallets.
Mickey Reno,
I suspect that the Chinese are contributing articles to the NYT and the LAT.
Speaking of the stupid, gullible big lefty print press, boy they must really want to believe they’re living in a new Nixonian era, and that Trump’s Access Hollywood comments are akin to Watergate so long as they can build up enough momentum for the idea that sexually tainted wrongdoing is serious enough to get a very Republican House of Representatives to impeach him. But then they are immediately thwarted by the fact that in so doing, they remind people of the last time a president was impeached, AND GROPING WOMEN and even rape was just fine and dandy in their minds back then, and that the woman who stood by her man back then and tried to smear and discredit those women was their champion against Trump in the most recent election. So then their heads start to spin around like Linda Blair’s did in “The Exorcist.” and then pea green soup starts flying, and we all forget about what the main point was and we only wonder who is going to clean up all that puke. Cause it sure ain’t gonna be the big lefty press.
…isn’t actually starting and no ones…… when it will start as noted in another article discussing China’s new market”
missing word
It’s rather comical, every time a “carbon market” is announced anywhere these same glowing articles are recycled, and they all get forgotten once it fizzles. And I love how everyone forgets that the geniuses who first came up with the idea of a “Carbon Market” were the Smartest Men in the Room who ran Enron. Seriously, all of this was their idea.
“Because of this reality the Times must push carefully contrived climate hype in its articles by making sure to conceal the reality of a dying climate alarmist cause emerging around the world.”
This is more hope than reality.
Yes, tony, The LA times hopes no one notices Reality.
The available evidence is that California left reality 20 years ago and never looked back.
The left does seem to be more fixated with brainwashing small children into not knowing what gender they are these days than obsessing about Thermageddon and that’s reflected in declining numbers of climate alarm articles in the legacy media. There’s a post somewhere on WUWT about it where the usual Mickey Mann is squawking his alarm. Also general Trumpageddonism trumps all.
You’ll probably never see this response, but children aren’t that easily confused. At least those with half a brain.
I still remember my college roommate. He and his wife were psych majors. they wanted to raise their children to be gender neutral (this was 1977 for Pete’s sake), and no knowledge of guns.
The first child by age 4 had a huge collection of guns that he had made from various resources found around the property. All fake, but shaped and painted to look like real guns on the market. Absolutely amazing. Remarkable skills. He had mounted them on this bedroom wall. You could easily trace the early crude models that weren’t much more than tree branches with the non-complying parts cut off to more sophisticated models that looked like revolvers and semi-autos. By age six, his parents gave up and allowed him to have toy guns. That experiment failed.
They had twins two years after the first child (my roommate, who wanted no children, realized he had no power except to go get a vasectomy the day he learned of the twins). The male twin refused to wear any clothes that weren’t predominantly blue and had pant legs. The girl refused any clothes that weren’t pink – and they had to include skirts. By age THREE. They weren’t going to allow their parents to confuse them.
That experiment failed.
I lost track shortly after that. They were all brats who “just weren’t getting enough quality time” with their parents. And the parents just weren’t bright enough to figure out what was going on with the kids.
I should get in touch to see if the older one is in prison now.
Tony Mcleod
since words don’t mean anything to you why would you care?
So the state owned energy providers will swap carbon credits and pay who for what? This is a joke and anyone that believes this is a step in any direction is confused. The people that invest in this market are basically paying the government to manipulate their money and the more CO2 is reduced the less their money will be worth.
Consider you are the president of a China state owned company. How will buying carbon credits from a totalitarian state which owns your state owned company (and allocates from the national treasury any company monetary losses to your company’s treasury) and prevents any media investigation of any monitoring activities or lack thereof, prevent you from continuing spewing even more CO2 into the atmosphere from your smokestacks than the year before? This whole carbon trading scam is a sick joke even in democratic countries (witness the big court case ongoing in Brussels over a huge carbon trading scandal in the EU) and is a morbidly sick joke in a totalitarian country like China.
The intent of the ‘Carbon Market’ proposal has already been achieved. It has been published in the ‘West’ as China leading the world and obviously believing in ‘climate’ (sic). This is then used by the progressive greens as something to ‘show up Trump’ – support COP21 Accord etc etc.
….anyone that believes this is a step in any direction is UTTERLY MAD.
There, fixed!
What about the possibility that nations, states (CA?) or companies external to China will join in, buying unverified phony-baloney credits, siphoning off even more cash from suckers?
But it plays so well in scientifically illiterate, mathematically-challenged, and reality-challenged-land.
China suspends coal ban due to freezing citizens. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2123270/china-u-turns-coal-ban-amid-growing-outcry-over-numbers
“Experts say the carbon market’s success is not assured — China is beleaguered by limited monitoring and verification capabilities, a lack of transparency, and a politically influenced legal system.”
“Lack of transparency” also describes the air in Beijing.
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/1024px-Smog_in_Beijing_CBD2.jpg
But they have a solution.
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/Xinhua_FeiMaohua03.jpg
Mike:
It is cold, bitterly so in the humid morning chill, and as clear as a Pacific breeze here in Beijing today. There hasn’t been a cloud in the sky all day – yup, I just went out to look again.
The ‘polluted Beijing air’ soapie has had a good run on the BBC with telephoto shots of morning fog and the October burning of agricultural waste in Hebei Province next door, but the jig must be up soon.
Here at the lab we are trying to test a low pressure boiler but the water pipes are frozen, in part because of the plunging temperature, in turn because of the clear night sky.
A man on the scene. Do you know where this building is? It has a “Blade Runner” feel to it, but I haven’t been able to spot it on Google Earth.
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/104-Smog_in_Beijing.jpg
You’re a pussy. It’s about 10 degrees cooler in Shenyang, where I live. I currently have the window open to let in some cool air. It’s been a mild winter here so far. Lots of blue skies even though there are at least 20 coal burning water heating stations throughout the city.
These days it’s easy enough to see for yourself: https://www.webcamgalore.com/webcam/China/Beijing/2330.html
But that’s just smoke and stuff, not real pollution like carbon dioxide! Like, you know?
The ‘social cost of carbon’ was first mooted with an actual number by the EPA and it was $50 a ton (or thereabouts). It has no underpinning logic or theory of change. It was in an obscure document that was later cited as if it had some legitimacy as an unseen font of wisdom. Since then it is simply a matter of repeat citations.
The China News Daily had the announcement about the CCX two days ago. The article said China’s emissions will probably peak in 2030, which as everyone will recall, would have happened with or without Paris.
The article appeared next to a Bitcoin piece, which provoked the thought that a Carbon Coin is the same type of unreal currency as a Bitcoin, save that to create a Bitcoin you have to do something and to create a Carbon Coin you have to not do something.
I’ll volunteer for the latter. I promise to do absolutely nothing. Where do I collect?
Hey I’m still waiting for my royalty check from Big Oil… so get in line Mr. Crispy.
Jerry Brown should be arrested for treason by signing a document with a foreign country that has as its stated goal to subvert every democracy in the world.
Specifically what document did he sign with a foreign government?
This one?
“in June, Gov. Jerry Brown traveled to China and signed a nonbinding agreement with Beijing to limit greenhouse gases.””
It seems like a good idea, but I think I read somewhere that nobody has ever actually been convicted under the Logan Act?
So, who actually contrived a carbon market originally?
Not sure but his last name was probably Madoff. Or Ponzi.
“So, who actually contrived a carbon market originally?”
Enron CEO Ken Lay, Al Gore and David Blood (yes, really!).
http://humanevents.com/2007/10/03/the-money-and-connections-behind-al-gores-carbon-crusade/
Geneva Environment Network, Geneva, Switzerland
Non-Governmental and Business Organizations
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), created June, 1999
Aim is to establish an international framework for trading carbon emissions.
More information on IETA at:
http://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/?q=en/green_guide/international-emissions-trading-association
CCX, U.S. was launched about the time of the Kyoto Accord or shortly after as I recall.
Maurice Strong played a role in launching both.
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), North America
Re: Climate change and emissions trading in North America.
Includes: “OUR TEAM”
http://www.ieta.org/About-IETA
European Commission, 07/11/2017
Re: Climate action, climate change, carbon markets.
‘EU and California in Joint Climate Push, Boost Cooperation’
Article at:
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/eu-and-california-joint-climate-push-boost-cooperation_en
IETA
IETA Summit Side Events, July 8-9, 2015, Toronto
Side events and participants at:
http://ieta.org/IETA-CLIMATE-SUMMIT-OF-THE-AMERICAS-SIDE-EVENTS-TORONTO-JULY-2015
IMF, Oct.19, 2015
Press release No. 15/473
Re: Gov. Jerry Brown
‘Leaders Unite in Calling for a Price on Carbon Ahead of Paris Climate Talks’
http://imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr15473
United Nations Climate Change
Announcement: 13 Dec 2017
‘Leaders Across the Americas Step up Carbon Pricing’
“Carbon Pricing in the Americas (CPA)”
New Carbon Pricing in the Americas Cooperative framework launched.
https://cop23.unfccc.int/news/leaders-across-the-americas-step-up-carbon-pricing
Includes participants.
World Bank
Press Release: April, 21, 2016
Re: Gov. Brown
‘Leaders Set Landmark Global Goals for Pricing Global Carbon Pollution’
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/04/21/leaders-set-landmark-global-goals-for-pricing-global-pollution
Correction:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/04/21/leaders-set-landmark-global-goals-for-pricing-carbon-pollution
CA. Gov,
News Release c. 2012
Re: Climate change solution.
‘Gov. Schwarzenegger Announces Meeting With UN Secretary-General’
https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=7046
United Nations / Secretary-General
27 July 2007: Speech, San Jose, California
Re: Green house gas emissions and global warming.
Click on:
‘Secretary-General’s Press Encounter with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’
https://www.un.org/sg/en/speaker/sg?page=1022
CA. Gov / Gov. Schwarzenegger
Re: IETA, RGGI, and emissions trading.
‘California, New York Agree To Explore Trading Greenhouse Gas Emissions Credit Trading Markets; Gov. Schwarzenegger Tours Carbon Trading Floor’
https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=4449
Shouldn’t it be called a “CO2 Market” rather than a carbon market?
Time for a carbocurrency.
BTW, as I write this I have to chuckle. Bitcoin is … um … letting off volatile gasses.
All those chicken-counters down in the egg department are probably a bit ruffled at the moment. Merry Christmas!
If you all send me enough money, I’ll promise not to move my lawn next year and let it catch all that evil CARBON.
I won’t move my lawn either. I like it right where it is.
No! we have to mow the lawn and bury the clippings deep underground to sequester the captured carbon!
Better yet, lets start by burying all the forests in autumn before the leaves start to fall off….
The raise of China as an idol of the Greens is an interesting one , for even if you ignore its awful human rights record and that takes some ignoring , its dam awful environmental records should be more than enough to rule any such idea out. And yet there it is held up as an ideal . To some extent this is merely a reflection of the water mellow nature of some of them , anything anti-west is good and anything that is ant-USA is even better. To some it is a total lack of knowledge and an odd view that everyone in China is still living some rural ideal life , and for some they just been suckered in by all the green BS China spouts which is often nothing more than ‘we may do something in the future .
And why should China not sign up to any agreement that ask them to do nothing and to judge themselves if they have done it , while given them an industrial advantage and possible cold hard cash for it . I cannot think why, so of course they do and this given the greens even more reason to idolise them .
Germany under Hitker and Russia/USSR under Stalin were idolized by the weak minded of theircday as well.
“The raise of China as an idol of the Greens is an interesting one”
…and also a straw man.
21 Dec: SouthChinaMorningPost: China flicks on the carbon market switch but trading still a long way off – with or without Trump
Beijing still has to explain how carbon credits will be allocated and what rules will govern the system
by Nectar Gan
Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to launch a national carbon market by the end of 2017 when he met Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, two years ago. But the scheme launched this week is only the very first step towards a functional market.
“It will take two more years before any real money will be spent in the market, probably not until 2020 – that’s my judgment,” said Tsinghua University professor Zhang Xiliang, who has advised the government on the scheme…
It also lacks concrete plans on how the market will be run, such as how the emission permits will be allocated to the industry.
It will take about a year to complete the building of “infrastructure”, including national systems for reporting data, registration and trading. Then there will be another year of ***mock trading in the power generation industry where no actual payment will take place…
Chinese companies and lower-level authorities have repeatedly made headlines for doctoring emissions and air pollution data…
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2125138/china-flicks-carbon-market-switch-trading-still-long
CAGW insiders at Carbon Pulse (behind paywall) have been on to this since Nov):
16 Nov: CarbonPulse: Just a game: China ETS to kick off with two years of simulated trade, no compliance obligations
China’s national emissions trading scheme is set to be a “game” when it starts in the coming months, with no real trades or compliance obligations during its first two years of operation, two sources close to the market’s design process said Wednesday
20 Dec: CarbonPulse: Real trading in China ETS unlikely before 2020, government plan shows
Actual allowance trading between power generators in China’s national emissions trading scheme is unlikely to start before 2020, while other sectors could be brought into the market even later than that, according to the government’s scheme design plan published Wednesday.
So what? It’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking. The negativism here on WUWT is astounding.
Realism
Not as astounding as your naiveté.
I, for one, resent being called “negative”. We aren’t being negative. We’re making fun of leftist insanity. That’s a positive thing, wouldn’t you agree?
It is the Alarmists who are the nattering nabobs of negativism.
“It’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking.” So were “The Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution”.
THe LA Times has always led the nation (excepting the WASH Post and NY Times) as the greatest fake news papers. The funniest lie is the caption below the picture of the Chinese guy wearing a mask
and the mention that he is doing so because of CO2 emissions. The Chinese have an air pollution problem – that’s why they have been building hydro and nuclear plants and replacing their dirty coal plants with propane power generators. Chinese scientists have never expressed any great concern abous CO2 emissions.
The LA Times is not political so much as delusional.
The proper term for a market that trades a future value at a price equal to today’s price is “failed market”.
Lord Stern set the tone for this with his bogus eceonomic paper.
Perhaps we ought to calculate a social benefit cost of each ton of carbon to illustrate how much CO2 emissions benefit humanity and the planet. There is a lot of expertise on WUWT but to start the ball rolling we ought to calculate the value of the food crops grown in the developed world and divide that by the amount of CO2 used growing crops. Livestock and meat trade and value of sales would equally give us a better handle on reality. Petrol and oil, well it enables just about everything.
Clearly the alleged cost of carbon (as these muppets call it) would be swamped by the value to the planet and every living creature on it of using fossil fuels.
I was struck by the sheer crassness of the BBC’s coverage of natural history the other day when they showed pictures of the huge outcrops of (now inland) limestone reefs in south-east Asia as a backdrop while whining about climate, without ever m3ntioning that these fascinating features are actually captured carbon. Perhaps we ought to include topography in any calculation – no I suppose not on reflection.
Not only that, but the huge social benefits of fossil fuels, which the carbon catastrophists conveniently ignore.
Hmmm! What should I invest in? Tulip bulbs, carbon credits or bitcoin.
Try ManBearPig furs.
+10
It is hilarious the lengths the Climatastrophists are going to to convince themselves that the jig isn’t up, from the “We Are Still In” campaign, and now this pretense that China is the new “Climate Leader”.
The cognitive dissonance has to be unbearable.
Cognitive dissonance only happens to people with basic morals. I.e. “a conscience”.
Not necessarily. It just means that their need to feel part of The Climate Cult supersedes the need to live in the real world, but that creates an inner conflict and turmoil.
“…could enable China — the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter — to formulate even more ambitious climate goals in coming years.”
Yes, from zero to almost zero, that’s a big step.
Did anyone notice the caption under to photo of the man wearing the mask with the heavy air pollution in Beijing? The caption goes on to talk about the “record” carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere last year. A record compared to when?
Interesting how the caption is subtly worded so as to suggest that carbon dioxide is responsible for the air pollution in Beijing rather than nitrogen and sulfur oxides and other emissions. I’m all for the controlling of nitrogen and sulfur oxide emissions, but subtly blaming the pollution on CO2 (as the caption is worded) is going over the top.
The L.A. Times would appear to be good for little more than lining one’s bird cage when it engages in this kind of yellow journalism.
If that’s what the “experts” say, I shudder to think what the idiots are saying. Perhaps they think China will be shipping cut-price carbon credits to California.
Well said Moderately Cross of East Anglia!
At 43% carbonate Oysters make great carbon sinks and tasty too. Fast growing filter feeding water purifiers they should soon overtake Polar bears in the ‘Race to Save the Planet’! Besides the Bears are rapidly adapting to their new role as garbage recyclers for the growing Eskimo waste stream.
Cheers,
Bahamamike
Thank you Mike – eating oysters to save the planet, great slogan
Weaselly weasel words: “nonbinding”, “goals”, “likely”…
Takes real courage to say you “might” do “something”.
Did I miss something or did the article here fail to notice another another piece of critical information missing from the LA Times: That the market might be cap-and-trade with a large cap.
The comparison article in QUARTZ got it right:
“At launch, the government is likely to set the cap high, allowing most power plants to keep emitting as they do. If so, there won’t be much emissions reductions. ” — https://qz.com/1159667/china-is-launching-the-worlds-largest-carbon-market/
Yes, very surprising that the Greens and Enviro’s believe anything China says. Especially the kind of stuff people like Griff preaches about China now being a climate “leader” while they build and finance well over a thousand new coal plants in China and around the world. They probably think they have very good human rights too, or any kind of freedom of any kind to speak of. No wonder so many Chinese desperately want to get their money out of China and invested in Europe and North America. That should say it all.