China coal use exploding, U.S. leads world in CO2 reductions, alarmist media conceal all this & much more

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

In the scientifically unsupported wacky world of climate alarmism propaganda hype and media hysteria the public is threatened with claims that our country must commit economic and political suicide by abandoning all CO2 producing fossil fuel or man made climate change will destroy the earth.

The fact that this purely politically contrived scam is driven by projections from flawed and failed computer models which the U.N. IPCC long ago proclaimed as being unfeasible is dishonestly concealed from the public by climate alarmists and their media propaganda agents.

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Also carefully cloaked from public view by the climate alarmist schemers is the fact that unlike the U.S. the world’s developing nations not only control the globes future growth of both energy use and CO2 emissions but also that future U.S. energy and emissions growth are irrelevant to the future global growth of both these criteria.

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Additionally hidden from public view by climate alarmists supporters is the fact that not only are future U.S. energy use and emissions growth irrelevant to global growth that is driven by the world’s developing nations but that the U.S. is leading all nations in reducing CO2 emissions through its market driven energy policy that has been incredibly effective and successful unlike what has occurred with the failures of EU energy policy.

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No other nation has been able to reduce CO2 emissions as much as the U.S. in the last decade with over 870 million metric tons in lower CO2 emissions achieved through 2017 from peak year 2007 levels with EIA projections of further increasing that to 1 billion metric tons in reductions by 2050. 

By comparison the EU with leader Germany and its enormously costly “Energiewende” green transition program has managed only to achieve about 260 million metric tons of CO2 reductions in the last decade well below its original objectives.

EIA emissions projections show the U.S. achieving more than 6 times greater CO2 emissions reductions by 2050 versus the EU with its economically and energy flawed and failed schemes of government mandated use of costly and unreliable renewables.

The U.S. huge emission reductions have been achieved primarily by replacing coal fuel use with lower cost, higher efficiency and lower emission natural gas fuel obtained through use of fracking technology.

Climate alarmists also obscure from public view the recent major policy failure by the EU which had to dump and completely abandoned its plans for setting specific year 2050 climate alarmist targets and commitments for all EU nations.

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Unlike the U.S. which has decreased coal use and emissions China which is dominating and leading the world’s growth in both energy use and emissions growth is now further accelerating its increased use of coal fuel as recently highlighted below where new data has exposed their changed energy policy of increased coal use.

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“China has repeatedly pledged to reduce its reliance on coal, a major source of smog and climate-warming greenhouse gases, and it has cut coal’s share of its total energy mix to 59 percent, down from 68.5 percent in 2012.

But satellite images show China “quietly resumed” construction in 2018 on dozens of previously shelved plants, making it a “glaring exception to the global decline,” said a joint report by environmental groups Global Energy Monitor, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

The report warned that China could build an additional 290 GW of capacity, more than the whole of the United States’ coal capacity, and still remain within the 1,300-GW cap for national coal-fired power generation proposed by the China Electricity Council, an influential industry group.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission and its National Energy Administration did not immediately respond to faxed requests to comment on the conclusions of the report.”

China has taken these steps despite California’s phony political claims that China is the states partner in fighting “climate change.”

China’s new policy emphasis on increasing coal fuel use is of course masked from public view by the climate alarmist news media propaganda community.

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China is by far the largest user of coal fuel as are the other nations of the Asia Pacific region which dominate global coal fuel use globally along with growing emissions that completely dominate total world CO2 emission levels.

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China and the developing worlds hugely increasing and already dominate energy use and emissions levels, driven by coal fuel use, demonstrate how absolutely incompetence and contrived the “global” Paris Agreement was and is and conclusively demonstrate that this scheme was pure political gibberish intended to try and falsely justify increasing global power in the UN’s unelected elitist bureaucracy.

Here in the U.S. the dual climate alarmist conspiracies of scientifically unsupported alarmist claims based on nothing but speculation and conjecture from invalid computer models coupled with the global irrelevance of U.S. energy use and emissions growth along with concealing the U.S. global leading emissions reductions achievements expose the clear and diabolical political campaign underway by alarmists and their political allies that are trying to destroy our freedoms and opportunities to better our lives and the lives of our children and future generations.

The scheming and hysterical climate alarmists and their media enablers dishonestly conceal the U.S. global leading role in reducing emissions during the last decade, hide the additional U.S. emission reductions projected in the future, withhold from view the extraordinary benefits of our market driven energy policy which increases the use of natural gas to decrease coal fuel use, lower energy costs and improve energy efficiency, cover=up the pure speculation and conjecture underlying invalid computer model climate alarmist projections and suppress the fact that U.S. energy use and emissions and growth are irrelevant to global levels both now and even more so in the future.

Climate alarmists contrived and phony energy and emissions schemes and claims clearly deserve to be totally rejected and the sooner the better.

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Izaak Walton
March 30, 2019 10:21 pm

So if coal use is increasing and forecast to continue to increase does that make RCP 8.5 the most plausible pathway?

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Izaak Walton
March 31, 2019 1:16 am

According to the models, yes.

The fact that this scenario is so far from current reality just exposes how deeply flawed all of the models are.

WXcycles
Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
March 31, 2019 6:56 am

And those models reflect the programmed assumptions – clearly false.

Weather cycles only, not climate-change.

ferd berple
Reply to  Izaak Walton
March 31, 2019 4:55 am

RCP 8.5 the most plausible pathway?
‘≠=≠======
No, because 8.5 refers to temperature not emissions and model projections have no predictive skill. Otherwise they would be called predictions.

Crispin in Waterloo
Reply to  ferd berple
March 31, 2019 3:08 pm

Supporting Ferd, adding that RCP8.5 is impossible, not just very unlikely.

MarkW
Reply to  Izaak Walton
March 31, 2019 7:41 am

Even with all the new coal plants, CO2 emissions are still way below RCP 8.5.

Dean
Reply to  Izaak Walton
March 31, 2019 6:24 pm

Pondering this then it might make the input assumptions of a scenario like RCP8.5 closer to what is actually happening in the real world than the heroic assumptions about stabilising/reducing CO2 output rates.

This has nothing to do with the models predictions, simply the inputs.

With the inputs are skewing one way, the actual observations stubbornly showing that either the earth is finding inventive ways to store energy deep under the carpet, or that the models are even more ridiculous.

Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 1, 2019 9:06 am

“So if coal use is increasing and forecast to continue to increase does that make RCP 8.5 the most plausible pathway?”

No, it doesn’t. As I pointed out on David Friedman’s blog:

https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/04/is-ipcc-high-emissions-scenario.html

“For example, as I pointed out on another blog, total world production in 2000 looked like this (in thousands of short tons)
China 1,514,054
United States 1,073,612
India 370,018
Australia 338,103
Russia 264,912
South Africa 248,935
Germany 226,048
Poland 179,247
Kazakhstan 85,367
Indonesia 84,469
Rest of world 742,401
Total world 5,127,166

In 2100, the world production is predicted to be about 44 billion short tons (or 44,000,000 thousands of short tons). That would mean that all the countries combined would need to have a production-weighted average of 8.6 times their year 2000 emissions.”

In order for RCP 8.5 to be at all plausible, you need to come up with a scenario wherein the countries of the world are producing 44 billion short tons (i.e. approximately 40 billion metric tons) in 2100, which is 8.6 times their total production in the year 2000.

Try it yourself. Tell me if you think there is a plausible way that the world production can continuously increase to 44 billion short tons (40 billion metric tons) of coal production in 2100.

Loydo
March 30, 2019 10:49 pm

If “this purely politically contrived scam is driven by projections from flawed and failed computer models” who cares whether China “quietly resumed” doing anything? That shouldn’t make any difference.

R Shearer
Reply to  Loydo
March 31, 2019 6:11 am

China’s truly harmful emissions, such as Hg, particulates, SOx and NOx, swamp those from the U.S. Their use of emission controls is inadequate.

Paul of Alexandria
Reply to  R Shearer
March 31, 2019 9:25 am

My son just got back from a National Guard deployment to South Korea. Beautiful country, but the smog blowing in from China made things miserable, even that far away. Generally, everyone wore face masks.

R Shearer
Reply to  Paul of Alexandria
March 31, 2019 9:45 am

It’s even worse up close, imagine Pittsburgh of the 1940’s today.

I recall being driven by a coal-fired power plant in a second tier city not too long ago and air from the brownish fog from the plant was unpleasant to breathe and for miles created a dark highly polluted zone. Upwind it was relatively clear and sunny.

MarkW
Reply to  Loydo
March 31, 2019 7:42 am

We’re pointing out the hypocrisy of you Global Warmists.

F.LEGHORN
Reply to  Loydo
March 31, 2019 2:19 pm

It does “make a difference”. It means China is making more plant food than we are.

anorak2
Reply to  Loydo
April 1, 2019 5:53 am

You’re right it doesn’t make a difference if CO2 is harmless anyway. The point is: Even assuming it isn’t harmless, all efforts in western countries are futile and will be overwhelmed by what India and China do. You can as well let go.

John Endicott
Reply to  Loydo
April 1, 2019 10:38 am

Loydo, it obvious doesn’t make any difference in reality. In the green-fantasy where CO2 is a bad thing, however, the fact that greens are ignoring China shows their hypocrisy and the fact that even if the west destroys their economies, it won’t stop India and China from putting out ever greater amounts of that stuff that the greens demonize.

March 30, 2019 10:50 pm

This is what was agreed by U.S. President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping in November 2014 prior to the Paris Agreement of 2015:

“Building on strong progress during the first six years of the Administration, today President Obama announced a new target to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. At the same time, President Xi Jinping of China announced targets to peak CO2 emissions around 2030, with the intention to try to peak early, and to increase the non-fossil fuel share of all energy to around 20 percent by 2030.”

See Fact Sheet here

Why is everyone surprised by China’s increased emissions ? It has been agreed by U.S. President Obama in 2014 !

paul courtney
Reply to  Ashok Patel
March 31, 2019 6:03 am

Ashok: Precisely, it was right there in the agreement, yet there is surprise. Why, indeed. Didn’t the press cover it? They covered the subtler points, like how just having an agreement at all was the most important outcome, how could they miss the black-and-white agreement provisions?

Serge Wright
March 30, 2019 11:01 pm

Emissions from the developed nations have not risen since 1980 and the USA is reducing emissions due to use of cheap shale gas. The entire left-wing pitch of “lets end capitalism to save the planet” is not only without evidence, but is contradictory to all the evidence.

The problem for the developed nations is to somehow allow the truth to be heard over the lies being spun by the left-wing army that control the media and most of the government funded public sector institutions. The recent Russian interference probe that exposed the labyrinth of lies and deception to destroy a presidentail candidate by fake news is just another example. Until such people are held to accound and placed in jail things will only get worse.

March 30, 2019 11:21 pm

As the USA cannot control the biased left wing Media, the only alternative is for the Federal Government to market a news source themselves. Yes I know “Pravda”, but what is the alternative.

Accept that there is what amounts to a campaign to destroy the US economy.

MJE VK5ELL

ferd berple
Reply to  Michael
March 31, 2019 5:06 am

CNN and MSNBC are way down while FOX is way up. The market in action.

Government run media on the other hand is all too easily corrupted by the party in power. Propaganda replaces truth.

2hotel9
Reply to  ferd berple
March 31, 2019 8:48 am

And yet Fox News is now owned by Disney. Leftists have been taking control of media for decades.

opus
Reply to  2hotel9
April 1, 2019 2:07 pm

No, it’s not. Fox news is separate from movies and entertainment and was not sold. Get your facts straight.

2hotel9
Reply to  opus
April 2, 2019 5:05 pm

No, it is controlled from the over all corporate entity, which is now Disney. Lie to yourself all you want, you are not lying to me. Oh, and MarkeeMark Suckerberg calling for more government control of free speech is no surprise, that is how he will pay off governments to block anyone from competing with his monopoly. You good with that, too, sweety?

icisil
Reply to  Michael
March 31, 2019 7:05 am

Why do media have to be biased left? The way to control leftist bias is to enable conservative access to all media.

Michel beauregard
Reply to  Michael
March 31, 2019 6:47 pm

This whole article mostly critizes the EU for missing its targets and saying the US is doing much better in reducing it’s co2 emission, and yet the last graph shows US co2 growth of 2.5%, while EU growth is 0.7% for 2018.

Roland
March 30, 2019 11:27 pm

The last graph shows 3.7x CO2 emissions now relative to 1960 -ish…where is all this CO2? The math just doesn’t work. The actual CO2 concentration increase has been linear for 50+ years at Mauna loa, but emissions increasing many times the concentration increase.

Seems to me that increases in atmospheric CO2 should be closely matched to any increases in emissions, particularly in short time spans.

I personally get that even with increased CO2, the carbon sinks increase uptake (greening) but really the alarmists can’t have it both ways. It’s either huge emissions increase with no balancing sinks, or it’s not. Can’t both be right

Roland

David
Reply to  Roland
March 31, 2019 5:34 am

We aren’t the only CO2 source in fact we only make up a small percentage of CO2 emissions

Reply to  Roland
March 31, 2019 9:28 am

Same problem I have. Rough calculation of the Carbon dioxide levels as measured at Mauna Loa show that in 1955 the level was 310 ppm, in 2019 it is 410 ppm. That is in increase of 100 over 65 years or an increase of 1.5ppm per year. However Man is only responsible for less than ~ 4% of the amount of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. The Mauna Loa graph is essentially linear and only slightly asymptotic [slightly curved]. Meanwhile the AGW graphs show a highly exponential [“Hockey stick”] increase in CO2 levels over that time period. Strange, very strange. The two graphs should agree or at least have a change in slope that corresponds, which it does NOT.

Michael
March 30, 2019 11:29 pm

Mr. Walton, your take from the article is to ignore one of its central premises??? The historical (empirical proof via actual data) utter failure of the models, in that the climate sensitivity to CO2 increase is without any basis outside the intellectuals’ Malthusian dreams, can not be ignored. Don’t you recognize your cognitive dissonance when you draw from the article (and models’ uniform failures) a conclusion that RCP 8.5 can have any merit in reality?

Greg
March 30, 2019 11:36 pm

Climate alarmists also obscure from public view the recent major policy failure by the EU which had to dump and completely abandoned its plans for setting specific year 2050

The EU failed to reach an agreement and have been told to redouble efforts to find one for the next meeting in June. It is untruthful to claim this represents ” had to dump and completely abandoned”. Clearly they have not ( yet ) abandoned their plans.

It is a sign of desperation when you have to start making untrue claims to back up your argument.

ferd berple
Reply to  Greg
March 31, 2019 5:10 am

They EU abandoned their plans. They are planning new ones.

There would be no need to redouble their efforts if they hadn’t abandoned the plans.

william Johnston
Reply to  ferd berple
March 31, 2019 4:48 pm

Yes, but when most people have the attention span of a raindrop, it makes good PR to say “we are redoubling our efforts” We are “doing something” as requested by our constituents.

March 30, 2019 11:36 pm

Good, we should be on top of the CO2 heap. It is needed for plants to grow. More CO2 is good.
No data shown that it is increasing worse weather/climate.

Greg
March 30, 2019 11:44 pm

First graph shows US annual “fossil CO2” as 5.4 Gtn
Second graph shows “energy CO2” as about 5.2 Mtn

Is energy really only about 1/1000 of the total US CO2 ?

WUWT?

joe
Reply to  Greg
March 31, 2019 4:47 am

You got the units right, but please take a look at the numbers on the left side of graph #2. They are thousands.

Wiliam Haas
March 31, 2019 12:21 am

The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So the world can stop using fossil fuels altogether but such will have no effect on climate.

griff
March 31, 2019 12:38 am

Hmmm… no mention of the UK?

“The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 3% in 2018 as pollution from the energy sector continued to decrease, provisional government figures show.
Emissions of the gases that drive climate change have fallen for six years in a row, and are 44% below the 1990 baseline for the UK. Emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are at the lowest level since before the start of the 20th century, when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, government officials said.
The fall was mainly due to a 7% reduction in pollution from energy suppliers, as the power sector continued to switch away from coal to low-carbon technology such as renewables.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/28/greenhouse-gas-emissions-uk-fell-3-per-cent-in-2018-official-figures

that’s govt figures, 44% CO2 drop, no grid outages, no effect on the life of the ordinary citizen.

Willem69
Reply to  griff
March 31, 2019 1:04 am

Hi griff,
‘No effect on the life of ordinary citizen’

Try googling ‘uk cold related death’
Comes up with:
“Fuel poverty crisis: 3,000 Britons dying each year because they can’t heat their homes, study shows”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cold-weather-uk-winter-deaths-europe-polar-vortex-a8224276.html

Otherwise everyting is fine,

R Shearer
Reply to  Willem69
March 31, 2019 6:21 am

Yes, ending the life of UK citizens should be considered as an effect on their lives. Reducing their disposable income should be considered a more broadly applicable second order effect.

Reply to  griff
March 31, 2019 3:25 am

No griff, How can you get so many things wrong ?

UK ’emissions’ have increased year on year…
…we just moved them to China & India
UK Imports of manufactured good have almost doubled since 2010
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/imports

Water vapour is the main GHG;
CO2 is a bit player – go read a book on atmospheric chemistry.

GoatGuy
Reply to  saveenergy
March 31, 2019 8:07 am

I appreciate your citing Britain’s off-shoring its CO₂ emissions. It is one of the rarely accepted or included consequences of being in an increasingly globalized world. To a similar extent, one might impute America’s emissions, or the whole EU. Because of the increased trade (to an extent ranging out to the “vital interests” level) with China. But the Walmart-of-the-Orient has prices and availability so compelling that we simply look the other way at her continuous-and-egregious belching of CO₂ plus heavy metal vapors, SO₂, particulates and aerosols. Capitalism at its finest. GoatGuy

John Endicott
Reply to  saveenergy
April 1, 2019 10:42 am

No griff, How can you get so many things wrong ?

This is griff we’re talking about, that he gets most everything wrong is just par for the course. it’s the rare occasions that he gets something right that should cause astonishment (fortunately those occasions are extremely rare).

icisil
Reply to  griff
March 31, 2019 6:35 am

We’re talking actual reductions in CO2. A portion of the UK’s reported CO2 reduction is fake, i.e., the CO2 from burned wood pellets at Drax is not included. Naughty.

Jay Salhi
Reply to  icisil
April 1, 2019 1:03 am

Question.

I know that green math claims wood is carbon neutral because the newly planted trees will recapture the CO2 in 100 years (or whatever the time frame) and that they ignore the concept of time to arrive at the carbon neutral treatment. But when measuring country wide emissions in the UK (or elsewehere) do they actually assume the Drax plant (or any other wood burning plant) is not putting out any CO2?

William Astley
Reply to  griff
March 31, 2019 7:32 am

Griff,

Phoney calculation of UK CO2 reduction?

There are multiple scams in the CO2 reduction assumptions and calculations, concerning ‘green’ energy. Lies multiple.

For example, the conversion of coal plants to burning wood pellets is assumed to be a change to a carbon free energy source.

If the energy to cut down the trees, convert the logs to pellets, and ship the pellets to the UK is included burning wood pellets releases more CO2 than burning coal.

https://www.pfpi.net/new-uk-biomass-policy-removes-subsidies-for-high-carbon-wood-pellets

Counting wood-burning power plants as having zero emissions, when in fact they emit more CO2 per megawatt-hour than coal plants, is the central scandal of the EU and UK approach to carbon accounting for biomass.

As noted below, wood pellet burning will no longer be allowed.

….Attention bioenergy and wood pellet investors: the UK has just announced a new policy[1] that could limit future wood pellet markets, particularly if adopted by other countries. The policy sets a new and substantially lower limit on fossil-fuel “lifecycle” CO2 emissions from biomass fuels in order to qualify for renewable energy subsidies, a limit that appears to be impossible for wood pellets to meet. Given the extreme dependence of the biomass power industry on subsidies, and its growing dependence on imported wood pellets, this is a significant development.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-06-20/uk-s-move-away-coal-means-they-re-burning-wood-us

PeterGB
Reply to  William Astley
March 31, 2019 9:04 am

William, it has become even worse. Did you not catch the news item a few weeks ago (probably BBC, I do not recall as I was suffering an acute outbreak of rage at the time) showing that some engineer numpty has tucked a small carbon capture procedure in the effluent stream so they are able to claim that Drax energy production from wood pellet combustion is now carbon positive. Yes, me too.

Reply to  griff
March 31, 2019 9:42 am
Gerry, England
March 31, 2019 3:38 am

The decline in the EU and the UK is because manufacturing has been moved elsewhere. taking the emissions, even if they were relevant, with them. The rising cost of electricity has driven that as unreliable generation and global warming taxes have increased. There has also been opposition to hydraulic fracturing to produce gas so the only other internal energy source is coal.

ferd berple
March 31, 2019 5:22 am

The UK switch to renewables means that Russian gas, not UK coal keeps the nation alive on windless nights. This is why Putin feels free to kill dissents on UK soil.

ferd berple
Reply to  ferd berple
March 31, 2019 5:24 am

Dissidents.

ferd berple
Reply to  ferd berple
March 31, 2019 5:24 am

Dissidents.

icisil
March 31, 2019 6:29 am

Since the Democrats seem intent on making global warming a key campaign issue, the upcoming presidential debates will be really fun if Trump gets his act together to learn all of the facts, like those contained in this article.

Adam
Reply to  icisil
March 31, 2019 7:25 am

Good point. Trump has to point out the effects of the Green New Deal on manufacturing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, and on natural gas producers such as Pennsylvania.

Also, the Republicans in Arizona have got to stop the cheating, or we’re going to lose this election ( and all future elections).

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Adam
March 31, 2019 1:17 pm

Trump just needs to show some graphs showing no increase in extreme weather, no increase in sea level rise. He needs to show, not just say, that all of the alarmist talking points are lies.

MarkW
March 31, 2019 7:37 am

In the world of Climate Science, what you say is way more important than what you do.
Climate warriors who fly private jets all over the world, while telling poor Africans that they can’t have electricity, are the good guys.
China talks about Global Warming, all the while building coal plants as fast as they can. For those like griff this is proof that they are one of the good guys.

Kenji
March 31, 2019 9:01 am

The legacy media DESPERATELY WANT the Fascist (Dear Leader for Life) Chinese Communists to overtake the US as dominant world superpower. The leftist media KNOW that the only way for this to happen is via cheap, plentiful, energy distributed across the entire Chinese landscape. THAT is why the legacy media never mention a word of the Asian Brown Cloud wafting across the planet. The Chinese are filthy pigs. In China, life is so cheap that their Dear Leader pollutes his own people’s environment with impunity.

Charles Pickles
March 31, 2019 10:03 am

To griff at 12.38 pm. I, a pensioner, and have recently received a notification from my electricity supplier, nPower, that my off-peak rate of electricity that provides heating for my wife and I is to increase by £100 per annum with effect May. That is an increase of 12% in one fell swoop. The only reason given was that Ofcom permitted that increase. My pension increase for the next 11 months is a mere 2% of last year’s value.
Conventional electricity generation fuel costs are not causing that significant increase. It is the impact of reliance on renewables within the whole system costs that has usurped steady and comparatively cheap electricity that was the norm, until politicians jumped on the bandwagon and passed laws that did not even appear in party manifestos.
I will not mention the loss in reserve generation capacity over recent years. I certainly foresee tears in the winters ahead.

Dennis Sandberg
March 31, 2019 11:12 am

Thank you China for providing the energy intensive products essential for a modern society. Unfortunately the liberals in the USA are so afraid of a few emissions it’s illegal to do the same here. Enjoy your new found jobs and the accompanying prosperity.

stock77
March 31, 2019 1:06 pm

A couple of points.
US is still the highest emitter per capita, roughly twice that of the EU nations and Japan. Still much higher than China. The reductions as percent of baseline have been higher in Germany than the US, the absolute number is higher in the US because we have 4 times as many people. It is also harder to reduce when you are using half as much fossil fuel as the US per capita to start with.
The German energiewende was an expensive program as it relied on solar power in a country with poor solar irradiation and at a time when PV’s were much more expensive. It did however help to jumpstart the industry worldwide and created the virtous cycle of increasing PV production resulting in declining cost curve resulting in more demand and then more production.
It is true that OECD CO2 use will not be the driver of higher emissions in this century, that will be a function of whether emerging markets use fossil fuels or a mix of wind/solar/storage/nuclear/hydro.
The RCP scenarios basically have different time frames for when the globe transitions away from fossil fuels and peak emissions are reached. In 2.6 it is in the 2020’s, in 4.5 in the 2040’s, 6.5 in the 2070’s, and in 8.5 we never peak but basically run the world on coal in 2100 with annual emissions reaching 100 gigatons.
It is clear that the rate of rise in emissions has already slowed, and it is likely that we will peak in 2020’s or 2030’s, depending on how hard policy is driven around the world.
The purpose of the US or Germany or Japan in developing a carbon free energy system is to the pay the cost of R and D to get us there. Once deployed at scale and with the infrastructure available to the rest of the world, emerging markets get to adopt it and bypass fossil fuels, just as no Third World country ever bothered to build out a full national landline system, they all leapfrogged to cellular.
Given that about a third of the US has already committed at the state level to do this by 2050, and likely the major EU nations will do so as well, the future is baked in. Carbon emissions will peak in the next decade in fall off over the next 30 years to zero other than airline travel and possibly shipping.
As the EU, China, and India are all banning ICE vehicles by 2030 or so, the gasoline engine is dying.
If it is technologically possible to go to an all renewable energy system at an acceptable economic cost, the benefits of that are substantial even if fears of climate change are exaggerated. Air pollution goes away at a local level and the global economy politics are not distorted by the massive transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars to oil producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia, who don’t do much good with all that cash.

March 31, 2019 1:15 pm

Multiple compelling evidence demonstrates that CO2 has little if any effect on climate. Calling CO2 pollution is science incompetence. Calling it carbon makes it sound more ominous and distracts from attending to possible real atmospheric pollutants, especially from coal, such as particulates, NOX, Hg and sulfur (as the Chinese are experiencing, especially with the smog in Beijing. Technologically advanced countries use precipitators to remove the real pollutants).

Contamination of the environment with real pollutants is a worldwide problem. Instead of all this fuss over harmless (actually beneficial) CO2, economic threats/encouragement should be applied to motivate all countries to require, as a minimum on new equipment, application of currently available technology to minimize real pollution.

John F. Hultquist
March 31, 2019 1:16 pm

Paul Homewood posted on this topic.
Here is the link to the China post: <a href="https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/03/29/new-coal-power-projects-declining-but-is-this-the-end-of-coal/&quot; Homewood post on China

The next day, was the post on India.
Very much worth the time to read them.
Thanks Paul.

And thanks to Larry H. for this post.

Daryl M
March 31, 2019 6:31 pm

Here are population counts as of February 2019:

Global: 7.71 billion
China: 1.42
India: 1.37
Africa: 1.32

China, India and Africa comprise almost 50% of the global population. Growth of CO2 emissions from China alone is more by far than the rest of the world, excluding China, India and Africa. Growth of CO2 emissions from India is ramping up. I’ll leave it to others to speculate on why Africa has no growth, but with the number of people on the continent, eventually there will be growth there as well. Anyone who thinks CO2 emission reductions in the rest of the world makes the slightest difference is deluded.

April 1, 2019 7:36 am

No fan of China, but they have every right to use coal to produce reliable electricity. I would suspect they’ll use typical pollution controls (precipitators, scrubbers for high-sulfur coal), but avoid the senseless catalytic converters & carbon-capture scams. Actually, fluidized-bed coal plants can reduce the need for even those basic controls, but not sure they’re going to go that route.

Jan Kjetil Andersen
April 1, 2019 9:40 am

Wouldn’t it be fairer to look at the emissions per capita than rather than per country?
A <a comparison of per capita emissions for US, UK and China shows
that US citizens still have highest emissions by far.

/Jan

Reply to  Jan Kjetil Andersen
April 1, 2019 10:57 am

People who prefer to base the argument on per capita emissions should be very happy to live in the Central African Republic. Very low per capita emissions there.

Perhaps you might want to factor in living standards, somehow, eh? Or do you rally think Man should still be living in caves before the discovery of fire?

Reply to  jtom
April 1, 2019 1:53 pm

The reason I took up emissions per capita was because the article compare the emissions in China to USA wihout mentioning that China has four times as many Citizens.

We all hope that poor nations will be able to grow their economy and offer a better life to their citizens, and they will undoubtly increase their per capita emissions in that process.

However, France and UK are good examples showing that it s possible to combine high living standards with relative low per capita emissions.

Robert
April 1, 2019 1:45 pm

Has there been a study which demonstrates that as carbon dioxide levels increase its greenhouse effect is reduced?

2hotel9
Reply to  Robert
April 2, 2019 5:00 pm

No factual study shows the opposite. What is your point?

Robert
Reply to  2hotel9
April 2, 2019 5:45 pm

Isn’t that what this discussion is about?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/
I ran across it after I asked my question.

2hotel9
Reply to  Robert
April 3, 2019 7:01 am

No, the point is China is breaking its agreements to reduce coal use, exactly as anyone with a brain knew they would. Co2 is plant food, more Co2 more plants more oxygen. The political left’s plans to force humans to destroy their energy production, agricultural production and industry base through the lie of Man CCaused Globall Warmining are failing, yugely, and it is fun to watch.

Robert
Reply to  2hotel9
April 3, 2019 9:48 am

I was referencing the linked article previously posted on this website. It mentioned that even the IPCC adnits that as carbon dioxide levels increase its effects on temperature will not be a much as previous increases. If you are aware of information which disputes this I would love to read it.

April 1, 2019 11:40 pm

Why bother just how one calculates anything. Apart from the smog,
which is affecting other countries such a South Korea, as CO2 is good for
plants , thus all life, and with no effects to talk of on the worlds weather, why are we so upset about rising level ?

As said so many times before, its all a big scam, a smokescreen that
politically we are slowly heading towards a Communist like world.

Only when, possibly like in Paris right now, we get our citizens out there
in the streets protesting, will anything change. But if they continue to behave like a mob of sheep, then thy will end the same way, very dead.

Here in Australia after our “Leaders” said that they would “Take the big stick” to the Utilities, to make them reduce their prices, they changed their mind and instead are now promising a “”One off” payment of a few hundred dollar s to enable us to meet one of the coming electric bills.

Of course other than reducing some “Donations” from the Utilities, the reason probably is that they the Utilities might say just why the prices are so high, the renewables.

MJE VK5ELL

John Endicott
Reply to  Michael
April 3, 2019 5:28 am

Why bother just how one calculates anything. Apart from the smog,
which is affecting other countries such a South Korea, as CO2 is good for
plants

and as CO2 is an invisible gas, any smog issues have nothing to do with CO2. That would be sulfur dioxide and particulates that you’d need to worry about with smog, not CO2.