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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Despite admitting China added a whopping 58GW of coal capacity this year, and admitting a few human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Foreign Policy is hailing President Xi as a world saviour because he promised to do something about climate change.
Did Xi Just Save the World?
In a little-noticed speech this week, China permanently changed the global fight against climate change.
BY ADAM TOOZE | SEPTEMBER 25, 2020, 2:23 PM
“China will scale up its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions by adopting more vigorous policies and measures. We aim to have [carbon dioxide] emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.”
Xi Jinping’s speech via video link to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22 was not widely trailed in advance. But with those two short sentences China’s leader may have redefined the future prospects for humanity.
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There’s an obvious question, of course: Is Xi for real?
There are reasons to be skeptical. Xi is not promising an immediate turnaround. The peak will still be expected around 2030. Recent investments in new coal-fired capacity have been alarming. A gigantic 58 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity have been approved or announced just in the first six months of this year. That is equivalent to 25 percent of America’s entire installed capacity and more than China has projected in the previous two years put together. Due to the decentralization of decision-making, Beijing has only partial control over the expansion of coal-burning capacity. If Beijing is actually to implement this policy, there are huge political as well as technological challenges ahead. There have been some encouraging noises about new renewable energy commitments. But the transition costs will be huge, and Beijing has to face its own fossil fuel lobby. As one commentator remarked, Chinese officials laugh when they earnestly seek advice from Europeans on problems of the “just transition” and realize that the entire fossil fuel workforce that has to be taken care of in Germany is smaller than that of a single province in China. It will be an upheaval similar to the traumatic 1990s shakeout of Mao Zedong-era heavy industry.
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Though Europe will cheer Xi’s commitment, in strategic terms it underlines how awkward the EU’s position is. On the one hand, the Europeans increasingly want to stake out a strong position on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, human rights, and any geopolitical aggression in the South China Sea. Europe’s residual attachment to the United States is real. But China has now underscored how firmly it aligns with a common agenda with the EU on climate policy. The contrast to the Trump administration could hardly be starker.
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Read more: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/25/xi-china-climate-change-saved-the-world%E2%80%A8/
What is wrong with the world?
Xi Jinping is operating one of the most repressive Chinese regimes since Mao Zedong, with almost daily reports of persecution of foreign journalists, human rights outrages in Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan and India with war, and brutal concentration camps in Xinjiang and perhaps also Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and who knows where else.
Xi openly reveres the murderous Mao regime as an inspiration to his “reformation” plans.
Yet one whiff of greater compliance with the Paris Agreement, not even actions, just words, and an influential media group like Foreign Policy leads with the headline that China is trying to save the world.
Completely off topic, but one of the most amazing medical stories I have ever come across. From the South China Morning Post, … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ycLWc4bRtg
Nice to see something good.
Why should anyone be surprised by this article? Climate change has about as much to do with the environment as the COVID-19 lockdowns with our health, which is to say none at all. The majority of people in the media are leftists, which means communists. China has the government they aspire to. Why should Marxists say something bad about other Marxists? Am I wrong? Why is the only solution to climate change always the removal of capitalism and implementation of socialism? And why is this true despite the fact that socialist/communist governments produce more pollution than capitalist governments?
China is fueling a global disinformation campaign. This is according to the New York Times. (Twitter thread about the NYT article — https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1270925788389486593 ) The reason is simple: To slowly condition people to accept more and more government control. People who are used to liberty are not going to give up all at once, you have chip away at it. It is also a fact that 4 more years of Donald Trump will hurt China bad. The factories that are in China can just as easily be in Vietnam, for instance. A trade war with China will be just a flesh wound to the US, but it can leave China like the Dark Knight with no arms or legs. (Monty Python reference)
Environmentalists may have started off being about the environment. Not any more. It is all about ending capitalism. The same is true with the antifa and the fascist BLM. (The primary difference between a communist and fascist is that communists hate people based on their class, fascists hate people based on their race.) And the fact is, they are succeeding. This younger generation will be just like Lenin’s young agitators in the pre-communist Russia.
The contrast to the Trump administration could hardly be starker.
Very true. US CO2 emissions continue to fall whereas China’s continue to rise.
+ 1000
China and EU, sitting in a tree…
Here’s a great example of one of the Left’s many mentally defective disorders: An autocratic anti-American dictator or regime promises some vague action years or decades in the future and the Left fetes them.
Which country does more for the environment – –
a) The one does not sign any international agreements but actually reduces pollution and emissions.
b) The one that signs every pledge, every accord, every treaty but does not actually comply with any.
For the Left, “b” is the only answer. Words count more than deeds; ideas, not facts matter.
2030 to 2060 . . ?
I thought we have less than 10 years to save the World . . .
The same as the New York Slimes singing the praises of Stalin in the 1930s (at the same time he was starving millions of Ukrainians).
Say it ain’t so, Xi. Another new flu virus in China….only 7 dead so far…it’s pigs again….the virus comes from human and bat and pig origins – yummy. Why is Xi telling us this? Maybe he wants some credibility? Maybe from experience he knows it will be found out anyway.
It makes no difference what the Chinese regime says about emission cuts. No one is allowed to check their numbers. They can promise a 97% drop in co2 emissions by tomorrrow, it makes no difference because China will do whatever is in their best interests anyway. The UN climate bandwaggon is defintely not part of the Road and Belt project.
See what China DOES!
China plans 226 GW of new coal power projects: environmental groups Reuters Sept 19, 2020
“China’s total planned coal-fired power projects now stand at 226.2 gigawatts (GW), the highest in the world and more than twice the amount of new capacity on the books in India…”
“… worldwide 400 of the 746 companies in their database were still planning to expand their coal operations.”
The projects approved by China amount to nearly 40% of the world’s total planned coal-fired power plants, according to the Global Coal Exit List database run by German environmental organization Urgewald and 30 other partner organizations.
The new China projects would be more than Germany’s existing installed power capacity of around 200 GW by the end of 2018.”
“China had 1,020 GW of coal-fired power by the end of July, amounting to 55% of its total installed capacity. A Chinese industry group has suggested total capacity could eventually settle at 1,300 GW.”
China Promotes Climate Goal, and Builds New Coal Plants
“China, though it has canceled some planned thermal power plants over the past several years, has as much as 200 GW of coal-fired facilities in its development pipeline, according to Mary Hutzler, a distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Energy Research.”
Lets not forget that normal Chinese have zero influence on anything except their purchases, thanks to the CCP regime with Xi Jinping as the latest Emporer. Their press ans social media are the strictest controlled on the planet. Xi can build hundreds of coal power stations a year and still claim to be super Green without a whisper of internal protest.
The twist is that this is praised by affluent free Western Lefties, under educated, mass bedazzled or paid by Soros.
An exception on Left Green stupidity: https://www.corbettreport.com/climategate-rebunked-with-marc-morano/
“What is wrong with the world?
Xi Jinping is operating one of the most repressive Chinese regimes since Mao Zedong, with almost daily reports of persecution of foreign journalists, human rights outrages in Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan and India with war, and brutal concentration camps in Xinjiang and perhaps also Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and who knows where else.
Xi openly reveres the murderous Mao regime as an inspiration to his “reformation” plans.
Yet one whiff of greater compliance with the Paris Agreement, not even actions, just words, and an influential media group like Foreign Policy leads with the headline that China is trying to save the world.”
This is called “appeasement”.
When you fear someone, you appease them, if you can. That’s what the Western Left does when they have to deal with dictators. That’s why the Left is incapable of defending Western interests because their first impulse is to appease. They give up the fight before it even starts.
CO2 emissions are falling in China! Yes, the MSM have given China the easiest possible ride on this.
1. China stops doing really stupid things to its economy (say 1979), and the economy starts to grow fast. This is lifting millions out of grinding poverty. For the left, this is ‘a good thing’ (never mind their responsibility for the previous stupid system in the first place), and CO2 emissions are a price to pay.
2. China is growing really fast, and the left begins to use environmentalism as a tool to pursue its old ambitions (say 2000). Bring down CO2 emissions to bring down capitalism. But China is growing fast, and China is an old leftish friend (at least it still maintains the ruthless authoritarianism that made communism possible in the first place); so, what are we to say about China’s CO2 emissions. They are rising, no doubt about that. Yes, but the rate of the rise is reducing. So “China is bringing down its emissions”.
3. Emissions still obviously going up. What about this: ‘the rate of rise of CO2 emissions per capita unit of production is going down, and will do for the next fifteen years’ (translation – putting into action many stolen technologies). So “China promises to reduce emissions for the next 15 years”.
4. Then, ‘the rate of CO2 emissions per capita unit of production is going down’. So, ‘China brings down emisssions’.
5. Then, extend absurd and mendacious promises on these things, out into the future beyond responsibility or accountability: 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050.
6. Dance all these things around the rhythms of COP meetings and IPCC reports, and get them joyfully reported in the Economist, the FT, the Daily Telegraph (and probably, for the US audience, the WSJ, the NYT, and others – I haven’t personally read these regularly, but I guess from reading WUWT over the years, that they have been equally culpable; my apologies if not so).
That’s where we are. No need at all to change anything. Breakneck growth. Utter contempt for treaties, pollution, and its own population. “China is reducing its emissions; the contrast with Trump’s USA could hardly be starker”.
You don’t think Xi has hairy legs by any chance….
I have lived and worked in Hong Kong for 50 years. I have yet to notice any human rights abuses, but in recent years, particularly last year, plenty of rioting or as they’re referred to by the MSM, ‘mainly peaceful protests’, lots of crybaby student radicalism and ridiculous press outrage – totally ignoring the extreme violence by these so-called fighters for freedom and democracy. Freedom and democracy are virtually non-existent now in the West. You’ll be treated more fairly by the authorities in HK that in the UK and most certainly the USA. I don’t log on to this site to read more nonsense about how oppressive life is in Hong Kong thank you very much.
Have you ever voiced any public criticism of the Chinese leadership, G. Bailey? My guess is no.
You know the Chicoms passed a new law recently that allows them to prosecute anyone in the world for criticizing the Chinese government. If I were to criticized the Chinese goverment and then took a trip to China or Hong Kong, I would be subject to arrest and prosecution for the criticism I voiced.
The United States and the UK don’t have laws like that, G. Bailey.
Go along to get along is what people do in China and Hong Kong now. Is that what you do? Do people get credit for promoting the Chicom government? I guess you have a “credit score”, if you live over there, don’t you?
I won’t be travelling to China or Hong Kong any time soon because I have been highly critical of the Chicom crimes against humanity like loosing the Wuhan virus on the whole world or oppressing muslims who live in China, or Christians, for that matter so the Chicoms probably wouldn’t be too happy to see me. I imagine my credit score with them is about zero. I’ll wear it like a badge of honor. Psychos deserve criticism.