Climate Warrior John Kerry Notices China’s Global Coal Funding Spree

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

“Some countries are funding coal-fired power plants around the world, some countries are planning to bring increased coal-fired power online” – But Kerry can’t quite bring himself to say the “C” word.

Climate change: Trump’s Paris withdrawal was ‘reckless’ – John Kerry

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

US Special Envoy on climate change John Kerry has said the country will now push for rapid action after four years of “reckless behaviour” under Donald Trump.

Mr Kerry said that withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement had threatened people’s futures all over the world. 

One of President Biden’s first acts following his inauguration was to re-apply to join the climate pact.

Mr Kerry said the US would now move forward with “humility and ambition”.

And this year’s climate meeting in Glasgow would be the “last, most important opportunity” to make progress, he said.

To get to net zero emissions by the middle of the century, he said, the world needed to phase out coal five times faster than in recent years. Net zero means that any remaining greenhouse gas emissions are balanced out by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere, through, for example, planting trees.

Renewable energy would need to be ramped up six times faster, and the transition to electric vehicles needed to take place 22 times faster than at present.

“I think we have to move from those dirty options much faster. Some countries are funding coal-fired power plants around the world, some countries are planning to bring increased coal-fired power online. So my plea to everybody is that we have to reach a much faster path of decarbonisation, it is doable.”

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55751936

No doubt China will decide reducing coal consumption is more important than their plans for coal powered belt and road global domination, after John Kerry has an earnest chat with them.

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Roland F Hirsch
January 23, 2021 1:52 pm

Actually “ this year’s climate meeting in Glasgow” will be a great opportunity to add significant amounts of wonderful CO2 to the atmosphere! The thousands (ten thousands?) of attendees! All the private jets! Past “climate” meetings have produced as much as 250,000 tons of CO2 for the atmosphere.

knr
Reply to  Roland F Hirsch
January 24, 2021 4:04 pm

Its been a long term irony that when they pick places for these ‘gatherings ‘ one thing they have to consider is the capacity of local airports to deal with ….private jets given the numbers used to attend this event !

January 23, 2021 2:22 pm

That photo of John Kerry always reminds me of “Mandrake gestures hypnotically”. Mandrake however is more believable than John Kerry.

January 23, 2021 2:24 pm

Does Kerry have an electric car? A guy who can afford a $700 haircut can afford an electric limo.

Loren C. Wilson
January 23, 2021 2:30 pm

And of course, the Glasgow conference will be held virtually so as to not produce the hundreds of tons of CO2 that the travelers and their entourages will create. I’m not holding my breath. Perhaps our chief apologists who post here can explain why the conference has to be in person when we have all worked remotely as much as possible for a year now.

Klem
Reply to  Loren C. Wilson
January 24, 2021 12:00 am

They must meet in person so their crimes cannot be seen, heard or recorded. It’s as simple as that.

observa
January 23, 2021 2:40 pm

It has come to the politburos attention that some counter-revolutionaries have been exaggerating the carbon footprint of the new US climate changing fearless leader and we want to put those ugly rumours to rest-
Does John Kerry Own Multiple Houses, Cars, and Yachts? (snopes.com)
Rest assured the peoples great struggle goes on and mask up up people.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  observa
January 23, 2021 8:44 pm

Funny. Snopes says the allegations are misleading, because most of the homes and vehicles belong to his wife. And the he sold the yacht a couple of years ago (so that’s ok then, right?). Wow Snopes, how low can you go?

Richard Page
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 24, 2021 4:19 am

Lower. Far lower. I’ve been incredibly disappointed in snopes for the past 4 years – they just went into full partisan mode and are still doing it.

January 23, 2021 4:06 pm

There is no one happier at Biden’s win than Justin Trudeau as he now has more cover for his idiotic policies and what he intends to do to canada.

Stevecsd
Reply to  Pat from kerbob
January 23, 2021 9:20 pm

I heard Trudeau was a little ticked off at Biden because Biden issued an executive order stopping the Keystone pipeline.

Klem
Reply to  Stevecsd
January 24, 2021 12:03 am

He wasn’t ticked off, otherwise he would have cried in front of the cameras.

billtoo
January 23, 2021 4:14 pm

nothing tougher than admitting you were played

Martin
January 23, 2021 4:15 pm

I’m wondering if China has another agenda by building all these coal fired powerplants. The debt angle is pretty obvious but is there a bigger “long game” benefit to be had? If China loses its developing nation status, what happens?

Reply to  Martin
January 23, 2021 4:36 pm

That would be in the phony world, not the real world so, in a word, nothing.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Martin
January 23, 2021 8:46 pm

If China loses its developing nation status, what happens?”

I don’t think they care. They’ll do what they want when they want. Who’s going to stop them?

January 23, 2021 4:26 pm

o my plea to everybody is that we have to reach a much faster path of decarbonisation, it is doable.”
So, Biden, based on his climate imperatives, put thousands of US workers out of a job on his first day in office, by decree, but Kerry will plead with the Chinese.
Sucks to be us.

Editor
January 23, 2021 5:52 pm

“No doubt China will decide reducing coal consumption is more important than their plans for coal powered belt and road global domination, after John Kerry has an earnest chat with them.”. They don’t need to have an earnest chat with John Kerry, they are already a long way ahead of the West towards their target of ‘carbon neutrality’, and they are building new coal-fired power stations as part of their long term strategy to peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and achieve ‘carbon neutrality’. They said so themselves. People in the West must be thick as bricks not to understand that. Mustn’t they?

Reply to  Mike Jonas
January 24, 2021 7:22 am

They had an “earnest chat” with Kerry when he negotiated the agreement with China for Obama/Biden that permitted them to increase CO2 until 2030 when they would CONSIDER leveling off.
No need for another.

fred250
January 23, 2021 6:06 pm

Didn’t take long, did it !!

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/09/29/syria-demands-withdrawal-of-all-american-turkish-forces/

Testing a very weak US president…… there will be much more of this coming.

aussiecol
Reply to  fred250
January 23, 2021 6:32 pm

Yes, just recently Iran is sabre rattling to get revenge for the drone execution of major general Qasem Soleimani. It will be interesting to see how the Biden camp responds if they do.

Richard Page
Reply to  aussiecol
January 24, 2021 3:43 am

Not well. Trump was savvy enough to resurrect Reagan’s sabre rattling posture in return for foreign sabre rattling. Other decisions he made may not have been the wisest for a long term regional strategy but did get him short term gains. Kerry and Biden will not do well – the Democrats history in such matters indicates that they will attempt to negotiate, get confused and be completely unable to deal with the sabre rattling and will then call on the US military to bail them out of a situation that they just made far, far worse. Given that Russian military is in place already it could get ugly.

Richard Page
Reply to  Richard Page
January 24, 2021 4:22 am

And for those of you not au fait with the latest military threat assessment – ugly is one level above messy but one level below nasty.

Jim
January 23, 2021 7:28 pm

Hey John, you better get over to China, then India and tell them – “We won’t do one more dime of trading with you, until you drop your pollution and CO2 levels down by 100%!” But if you give me my usual fee, I’ll extend that date each year.

Jeff Alberts
January 23, 2021 8:20 pm

US Special Envoy on climate change John Kerry has said the country will now push for rapid action after four years of “reckless behaviour” under Donald Trump.”

Wow! Unification!

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 26, 2021 11:26 am

Trump was just trying to clean up the reckless behavior of the Obama-Biden administration. Now, those Democrat fools are back in power and screwing things up again, like they did the first time.

January 23, 2021 10:24 pm

The Climate Wroughters know the earth has been turning troublingly cooler the last 5 years since the recent El Niño and ice extent has recovered and is rising at both poles. They are desperate to get regs in place so they can take credit for this natural cooling which they fear could see the Dreaded Pause return. Sign a bunch of laws in and then they can get in front of the cooling parade. Of course this will be heralded and seminal papers will be written that they saved the planet. Michael Mann will be the US climate czar, of course.

very old white guy
January 24, 2021 5:32 am

China will dominate the world because the western world is full of idiots and morons who will buy into any fraud that comes down the pipe.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  very old white guy
January 26, 2021 11:28 am

“China will dominate the world because the western world is full of idiots and morons”

And cowards.

Dave Andrews
January 24, 2021 6:23 am
Kpar
January 24, 2021 8:02 am

You failed to use Mr. Kerry’s proper title.

It is “The Traitor John F. Kerry”.

I now return you to your regular commentary…

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Kpar
January 26, 2021 11:29 am

Yes, I do consider John Kerry to be a traitor to his country.

I consider him to be a lot of other ugly things too, but I won’t go into that here.

griff
January 24, 2021 8:07 am

Well don’t forget other parts of Asia are busy cancelling coal plans:

According to a new analysis from Global Energy Monitor (GEM), four of the region’s largest emerging economies – Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam – may have cancelled nearly 45 gigawatts (GW) of coal power in 2020, equivalent to the total installed capacity of Germany.’

And if Japan goes ahead with plans to scrap 30 GW of inefficient coal plant, that exceeds by some way the (now) 8 GW of new efficient coal planned.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  griff
January 24, 2021 10:10 am

“May have”??

John
January 24, 2021 8:55 am

Kerry is a total doofus.

January 24, 2021 8:58 am

Renewable energy would need to be ramped up six times faster, and the transition to electric vehicles needed to take place 22 times faster than at present.

Does he just make this stuff up on the fly?

ResourceGuy
January 24, 2021 1:30 pm

Kerry is definitely meant for northeast urban areas and for export. He would quickly damage the Party in other areas of the U.S. in a different role.

knr
January 24, 2021 3:50 pm

Kerrys step son is deeply involved in Hunters little ‘China game’ so like Joe his got very good reasons to ‘handle the issue with care’

Gregory Kelly
January 24, 2021 3:54 pm

Did he observe this from his fuel guzzling yacht or his huge mansion? He is truly the worst Hypocrat!

Killer Marmot
January 24, 2021 7:57 pm

This is the same genius who said that moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would result in an “absolute explosion” of Arab conflict. The only explosion that occurred was the number of Arab states wanting to normalize relations with Israel.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Killer Marmot
January 26, 2021 11:33 am

Good point. Just like everything else, John Kerry got Middle East peace exactly backwards.

He and Traitor Joe make a good pair, if you are looking for a couple of idiots who are willing to betray their country when it serves their purposes.

January 25, 2021 6:10 am

The Chinese have a model of coal fired power station where coal power can be replaced by a nuclear module.

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