Guest essay by Eric Worrall
What a shocker – Australia is not rushing to meet John Kerry’s request to give up one of our main export industries on the timeframe of Kerry’s choosing.
Joe Biden’s climate envoy admits US and Australia not on ‘same page’
John Kerry’s comments, including a call for a faster exit from coal power, add to pressure on the Coalition to do more
Daniel Hurst and Adam Morton
Wed 24 Feb 2021 03.30 AEDT…
In an event last weekend marking his country’s return to the Paris agreement, Kerry said the US needed to regain credibility by adopting a strong new target for 2030, due to be announced in April. He said he would work “in a collegiate manner with other countries around the world”, before specifically mentioning Australia and the part it played at a deadlocked 2019 climate conference.
“For instance, I’ve talked to Australia – we had a very good conversation,” Kerry said in an extended conversation with former US vice-president Al Gore posted online over the weekend.
“Australia has had some differences with us, we’ve not been able to get on the same page completely. That was one of the problems in Madrid as you recall, together with Brazil.”
…
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed climate policy with his Australian, Japanese and Indian counterparts in last week’s Quad talks.
Biden said late last week countries could “no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change” because it was “a global, existential crisis, and we’ll all suffer the consequences if we fail”.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/24/joe-bidens-climate-envoy-admits-us-and-australia-not-on-same-page
Far from cutting coal use, I strongly suspect the Biden administration will preside over the greatest surge in coal demand the world has ever seen.
China and Japan, for all their faults, are doing what the West refused to do – building thousands of new coal plants, helping Africa, Asia and South America to rapidly industrialise, helping them to raise their standards of living to Western levels. In a decade, the smoke of Australian, South African and South American coal will rise over new industrial heartlands in what today are some of the poorest places in the world.
Even people who aren’t connected to the growing electricity grid and new manufacturing and trade hubs will benefit, as rising CO2 fertilises their crops, and shields their crops from droughts.
Nobody has the diplomatic stature to block the path of poor people who have tasted a little hope, not even the President of the USA – and certainly not John Kerry. But if the USA goes out of its way to place obstacles in the path of progress, people will remember.
Let us all hope and celebrate the possibility of 450ppm CO2 by 2030. Because every increase in the rate of rise of atmospheric CO2 is unequivocal proof that a poverty stricken country has finally begun its long march to join the ranks of the wealthy nations, begun its journey to bring hope to its children of a better future.
The fact that the Democratic Party ran him for President is appalling. Kerry almost makes Gore seem reasonable and well informed.
But compared to his boss and much of the cabinet, he’s a genius.
See what happens when you start from a low base. 😉
Kerry shouldn’t Shame Australia for mining Coal to sell to China, He should be Shaming China for buying the Coal and creating a market for it
Nobody should be shaming anyone over coal. Coal is a wonderful resource. The entire premise is flawed. It’s too easy to fall into the trap created by the fraud of anthropogenic climate change. Warming is good. CO2 was already seriously depleted mid 20th century and more is good.
“Coal is a wonderful resource.”
Agreed.
It’s a cornucopia of chemical feedstock & energy, so we shouldn’t waste it by burning raw coal, we should be refining it by coal gasification, in the same way we refine crude oil.
Nonsense. There is plenty of coal – probably enough to last 200 years. The fear of “running out of coal” is just as preposperous as the fear of “running out of oil”.
1000 years
In other words we should add uneconomical processes and make people poorer.
With new emerging coal refining technologies such as SCW, coal to liquids will be economically viable and increase utilization opportunities for coal as well.
Agreed, but that would take a commitment to real science and real conservation (instead of political “environmentalism”).
Bryan A, Kerry should be shaming China for refusing Australian coal imports and instead burning their own, lower grade and more polluting coal instead. The effect of Kerry being against Australian coal, which is high grade and fairly clean, is that he is in favor of China producing more CO2 “pollution”, which shows where the Biden Administration is.
No you have it all distorted
IEA numbers show that for 2019 China produced 46.6% of the world total coal production at 3,690 Mt but only imported 296 Mt so around 8% of their production. Somewhere around half may have come from Australia and probably 2/3 was metallurgical coal.
Ahead of Australia (5th globally) in production are India ~ 780 Mt, USA ~640 Mt, Indonesia ~ 610 Mt and then Australia ~ 550 Mt followed by Russia ~430 Mt.
So Kerry is a hypocritic and a wimp, why doesn’t he shame the others especially China if he really believes the dribble
Kerry knows nothing about Australian coal quality. He is a low information buffoon.
nothing makes the goracle sound reasonable
the fact hes buddies with him shows how daft lurch is
What “diversity” box does Lurch check for Biden’s admin? “Idiot”? They have more than their quota of idiots. A$$hole? They have more than enough of them, too. Rich white guy? I guess they didn’t want Bernie, so maybe that counts.
Nine Year Kerry should be deported…to Cuba.
as rising CO2 fertilises their crops
CO2 is more than fertilizer. It is an essential component for life on Earth. Every carbon atom in your body was once CO2 in the atmosphere. It really can’t be stressed enough.
Exactly, CO2 is not only a building block of life but provides the energy that life needs to function. Since CO2 is such a weak IR emitter the energy stays in the biosphere where it is used by all life. There’s a reason it is called the gas of life.
BUT, Steve, the greenieweenies are completely disinterested in your quality of life – even of your quantity of life. You, me (and almost every one else) are surplus to inventory, disposable, biodegradable, recycleable. Don’t feel bad. It’s not personal.
And the higher the CO2 level goes, the less credible their fictional nonsense about CAGW and “Climate Emergency” becomes.
The clear decoupling between benign natural warming and rapidly rising CO2 levels would show, better than anything else, the incompetence and greed behind their fairy tales.
Yes. Fertilizers are supplements. CO2 is central to the living process of photosynthesizing plants. Just like O2 is for most animals.
Come down, come down from your ivory tower executive jet emissions machine.
He comes down occasionally for one of his $700 haircuts.
Or an attaboy plaque from Icelandic greenies.
who’s paying these politicians to ignore China?…what’s the deal
China is paying them….and probably Iran as well.
But Hunter is holding their money for them. So they’re screwed.
When daddy becomes so demented that he forgets about his cut of the graft (or when he just up and dies), will Hunter get to keep it all?
Or through the unspoken honor among thieves, does Hunter pass it on to his mom. (In which case he has to admit to his daughter that his complaint about the ‘cut’ is unwarranted … and she still can’t have any more money.)
I think the description would be traitor
China is already communist.
Lurch is a F’n idiot.
Life is full of Karens and Kerrys.
It’s best to ignore idiots like them to get through life.
A definite answer to the male of Karen, Kerry.
Will be interesting if Biden tells Australia that they either stop digging up coal or he stops sending the US Navy to protect them from China.
I don’t know. Frankly I think if all else fails Australia would sever the lease on US military monitoring stations in Australia, and offer new military cooperation treaties to China.
Yes the US would need to be very careful or we would likely follow New Zealands move and have only a semi formal alliance.
MarkG if we didn’t send our coal to China, they wouldn’t be able to make Australia’s renewables.
Most people don’t realise that coal is a key ‘ingredient’ in the manufacture of silicon solar cells, as is hardwood timber. That is in addition to the coal used to fire the furnaces over 3 separate processes over several days at 1100C.
Don’t you just love it, clean, green sustainable renewables!
Have a look at the link, I recommend opening the PDF for ease of reading. It’s only a few pages but it’s a real eye opener in regards to the waste (half of it is lost when cut into silicon wafers) and the amount of CO2 created. Bloody hypocrisy!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels
Some of the hardwood is coming out of Brazil (rainforests) and in Indonesia too.
And this is just the crystalline silica solar cells. I would be thrilled if our coal stopped being exported to China.
Nice find Megs
Again but not much of coal used in China comes from Aus
“Australia disappoints”
~John Kerry
.
.
.
.Hahahahahahaha!
Your whole life has been one big disappointment, John Kerry. Sure, you’ve got money up the wazooo, but your life is just one big disappointment. Yahboo. Sucks to be you.
How does it feel to go through life perpetually angry, ignorant, confused, stupid, fist up your paid-for sock puppet butt… and rich?
Me? I’m a happy guy despite not having a lot of money. I sleep well.
Then there’s the stigma of stolen valour … know when people look at you they know. Even with money up the wazoo it must be difficult maintaining dignity under those circumstances.
There’s a good book by that name: Stolen Valor.
If you want to know about the true story of the Vietnam war, read this book.
Yes, an excellent book and deeply affecting, especially Part II, “The Trauma of War”, where Burkett discusses the human costs of that war. He foreshadows today’s ‘cancel culture’. My mind was on the book, not the subsequent law when I mentioned it.
He can never live down the fact that Shrub, Jr beat him like a red-headed step-child in 2004.
H.R. Not sure that John Kerry, or anyone else for that matter has the right to proclaim that Australia isn’t doing enough in regard to renewables.
A new report has just come out that Australia is way out in front of the rest of the world per capita, in regard to renewables roll-out. Not that this news pleases me personally, we are feeling overwhelmed right here where it’s all happening. I just wish that the likes of John Kerry would back off.
Check out the following link.
https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/australia-runaway-global-leader-building-new-renewable-energy
The arrogance of this slug, to try and tell any other country what to do! It’s too bad disappointment is not a fatal disease.
C’mon man. That’s why he has such a long face.
Kerry hears it every time he walks into a bar…
[Ref. the old joke: Horse walks into a bar. Bartender sez, “Why the long face?”]
I heard it was a Turkish guy and the bartender asked him about his long fez.
[near-sighted guy walks into a bar … so he says “ouch”]
[Democrat walks into a bar … Bartender says “get the fk out of here you stinkn parasite”]
Two blondes walk into a bar…
You’d think one of them would have seen it.
a horse face topped with a $700 haircut- he probably wants to be considered handsome like JFK, with that hair but no luck with that
is it really HIS hair or someone elses?
always looks like a wig to me
Perhaps Kerry could offer to pay Australia to keep it in the ground.
The USA will soon be running up $1-2 trillion additional debt per year. Out of all this pork they could probably find $50 billion / year to bribe the Aussie government – but the precedent would be terrible, everyone else would instantly stick their hand out.
Too late, Eric. Everyone is already sticking out their hand and expecting the West + Australia to fully fund everyone’s electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines, and hilariously expensive battery backup.
It would allow the USA to put supply pressure on China. Cheap really.
New Zealand had closed down it’s mines and is importing coal from Asia, there must be some logic there that only a politician can see.
Less developed countries are in it for handouts. Europe is in it because of their population density they needed to reduce power plant and tailpipe emissions anyway.
Countries like Australia, Canada, and USA are in it because we let idiots like Kerry run our countries.
What makes you believe that Europe needed to reduce emissions?
What makes you think it doesn’t?
Tom is no doubt referring to the air quality and particulate pollution problems from car and power plant emissions… which are certainly an issue in europe…
Certainly pretending the aim is to reduce emissions of much needed CO2 , make them look pretty stupid..
Right griff. !
You are not aware, where the most pollution in Europe comes from.
Emissions from wood and coal burning stoves in residential areas
For many people it has become attractive again to use stoves and fireplaces in addition to the central heating. For some it is the cosiness and warmth, and a higher living quality. For others heating with wood, coal or pellets is a cheaper alternative especially in the evenings of early spring or late autumn when the central heating is not in use.
According to the Federal Association of Chimney Sweepers around 11.7 Mio so called “single-room firing systems” are installed in Germany. They also reported that the number of traditional coal stoves is decreasing, the number of modern wood and coal burning stoves and featured fireplaces is on the increase.
There’s a big difference between environmentalists claiming there is a problem, and there actually being a problem.
Which have pretty much already been dealth with.
What tailpipe emissions? Drive a modern car down Oxford St. and it cleans the city air.
Dear John,
Exporting coal feeds our people through jobs and income. Perhaps you could set a good example by giving all bar one of your houses to the poor. I suggest some of the oil workers you have just made unemployed in the US. Scrap the private jet and use only public transport Or just walk everywhere. The US could also stop exporting wood to England to burn in their Drax power stations. You could also put some reasonable pressure on China.In the meantime Australia appears to be the only country that ever met the Kyoto commitments.So until the US cleans up its own house, sod off John Kerry, you bloody great hypocrite!!
Not to mention that coal power improves health, adds comfort and security to those countries to use it in addition to giving more recreation time to workers instead of working excessive hours to provide for their families.
Unfortunately Australia’s ‘semi-green’ politics threatens to wind back the gains in productivity and manufacturing that occurred during the time prior to green influenced idiocy. Manufacturing has moved off-shore so all that is left is agriculture, tourism and education of foreign students (COVID has stopped both), IT services and mining.
Now the newly Socialist USA wants to stop Australia mining coal (next will be uranium) so how do we generate taxes for the dole when there is no work available and no reliable power for both Australian people or industry?
Presumably Kerry is not referring to metallurgical or coking coal because the US is second to Australia as an exporter in terms of volume (AUS 55% world supply vs. US 15%).
In 2020 two thirds of Australian coal exported in $ terms was coking coal for steel manufacture, the main importers: 1.India 2.China(?) 3.Japan.
The one third in $ terms relatively high quality thermal coal (20% of world supply) main export markets: 1.Japan 2.China(?) 3.India.
It is time to get proactive:https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-politics/a-climate-resolution-for-your-group/
The higher the quality of coal China burns, the less it pollutes. Therefore buying high quality coal from the US or Australia will do more to reduce both C02 and particulate emissions than anything else we can do.
Those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to marry a rich widow, have to work for a living.
Something Kerry has never done in his life.
Good point. I don’t believe Horse Face has ever had a private job.
Doubt he has the ability to hold a proper job down.
He was in the military, at least until he got enough paper cuts to be sent home.
He’s another one of those progressives who went straight from college to elective office.
The Democrats just can’t help themselves. They have become drunk with political power and are turning the screws on their political opponents at home, and are feeling their oats enough to be threatening our friends abroad.
They don’t threaten our enemies, just our friends. They are afraid of our enemies, or subject to blackmail by them, so they get a pass.
Totalitarian Democrats are in charge in Washington DC. Totalitarians are going to try to get everyone in the world to conform to the way the totalitarians look at the world. Otherwise, you are guilty of wrongthink and are subject to punishment.
Texas needs to get that grid fixed. They may have a lot of new residents if the Totalitarians get too pushy.
“The Democrats just can’t help themselves. “
Indeed Tom, who could forget Obama’s famous threating comments to the Brits concerning Brexit….. “get to the back of the queue”. Nice.
Jeez, with friends like that, who needs enemies.
Check out the “leader” of the free world here, thanks Democrats, good job.
Too hard to watch – sad really. Good luck USA.
And one of the first things Biden did was remove Churchill’s statue from the Oval Office, where Trump had it placed. Obama probably requested Biden do that.
Its sort of like having a five year old sulking because someone took away his dummy and expected him to transition from wearing nappies.
In countries less affluent than the USA, replacing fossil fuels with new renewable electricity sources like wind and solar power is hard because most people desperately want much more power at lower cost, not fickle power at high cost.
When will gigolo Johnny give up his private jet?
As we say in Australia, he can get rooted.
John if you want to regain credibility how about submitting the Paris treaty to the Senate for ratification. Until then don’t bother me.
Ok John give us up front $6 billion AUD indexed to inflation times 50 years and we will stop tomorrow. Otherwise as another Aussie commenter said”go and get rooted”.
Once again this is linked to the radical neo-Marxist need to have a villain.
Developing countries want and need coal, but somehow the villain is the seller.
People who deny the poor their liberation through coal must be labelled as RACIST. And depending upon where they live, perhaps a jail sentence for hate crime.
If John Kerry tells developing countries to build nuclear power stations, we Australians will stop selling them coal.
yeah and sell em our uranium instead?
or is hillarys uranium one russian deal the winner?
guess it would be
There is a quote attributed to Frederick Bastiat “When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will”.
The Chinese government is probably aware that its energy and raw materials supplies can be cut off at the straits of Malacca choke point, they have an incentive to maintain diplomacy. The Australian government will also have to be wary of becoming used as a proxy by the US federal government in their trade war with China. Cut off energy supplies to China and their military will take a more direct approach for much the same reasons Japan did in the decade prior to Pearl harbour.
‘China and Japan, for all their faults, are doing what the West refused to do – building thousands of new coal plants’
I think you need an update on Japanese coal plant building…
Japan has now just 8 GW of new coal capacity in the pipeline … but! by 2030 plans to retire 30 GW of inefficient plant… and the Japanese govt has started limiting Japanese investment in overseas coal.
And the news elsewhere in Asia shows a trend away from coal…
In Bangladesh the government was planning to “review” all but three of the country’s under-development coal plants, capping coal power capacity at 5GW. Planned coal plants totalling 23GW are in doubt.
Vietnam’s draft Power Development Plan, which is due to come into force in 2022, proposed cancelling seven coal plants and postponing six others until the 2030s, by which point it is highly unlikely they will go ahead. The 13 plants represent almost half of Vietnam’s planned coal power development.
the Philippines’ Department of Energy has proposed a moratorium on new coal power plants which could lead to 9.6GW of cancellations. And, in December 2020, Pakistan’s Imran Khan announced that the country would not construct any new coal power plants, though the real-world impact of this grandiose announcement has been questioned.
According to Global Energy Monitor (GEM) the coal power pipeline in South and Southeast Asia’s four major emerging economies may have dropped by as much as 62GW in 2020. That leaves just 25GW under development, an 80% decline from just five years ago. Exact figures for cancelled and remaining plants will depend on how last year’s announcements is manifested in specific policies.
We’re in the middle of a global economic setback caused by Covid lockdowns, but it won’t last forever.
Even rich companies cannot afford the cost of going renewable, so there is no chance poor countries will be able to go renewable.
Poor countries, once they have exhausted hydro opportunities, have no option other than coal or gas.
A year or so ago, China announced that because of an economic slowdown, the number of coal plants they were projecting to build over the next 5 years had dropped from 640 to 600.
For the next 6 months, griff was proclaiming that China had announced that they were going to stop building coal plants.
griff see’s what she wants to see. Nothing more, nothing less. If you pay her more, she’ll see what you want her to see.
China is certainly planning less coal – at the top govt level. But of course regional govt seems to be able to get round that. Paradoxical in a centrist communist state…
Reading China is like 70s Kremlinology. Nevertheless, even the Chinese accept Climate change as a reality and will do something…
Of course they have an alternative – solar or wind. And solar doesn’t have to be PV panels either. Plus solar is installable where there isn’t a grid.
Fixed for ya.
I’ve posted fact about cancelled coal programmes. Feel free to check those facts.
John Kerry Disappointed Australia Wants to Keep Importing Money
Subtitle:
Wonders why they don’t find a rich widow
Lib govt here is teetering due to Craig Kelly going independent yesterday
Labour n greens are cheering as they push idiotic rape claims(2yrs to file with police) as a means to try n gain ground.
Kelly is browned off at freedom of speech issues re HQ and ivermectin safety
the mindless cancel culturists super vax mobs are out for blood on any who naysay their agenda.
funny sad story?
some idiot GP managed to give 2 elderly 80+ and 92 yr olds waaay over the 1ml vax dose today
hysterics ensue.
John Kerry is a dink. He’s never been anything else. And he’s about as useful as hair on a frog. That is all.
And I’m dissappointed that Washington DC wants to continue exporting hogwash.
BINGO !
Three idiots on the same page:
TED Talks:
About the speakers
John Kerry
Al Gore
Christiana Figueres
Kerry is another JFK and wants to get us into another Vietnam of sorts.
The only thing John Kerry is not disappointed with, but should be, is John Kerry.
Wait, Kerry is guilty of some extraordinary Climate Chutpah here. We’ve essentially been AWOL from the Paris Klimate Klub the past four years. I think there’s supposed to be a period of hazing, and of proving that we’re worthy. Get ready for some serious punishment of the US at the next climate shindig in Glasgow. We’re bad.
“give up one of our main export industries on the timeframe of Kerry’s choosing.” Australia has its own timeframe for that?
Online sources are not sure who said this. Some say it was Lincoln. Others say Mark Twain. Others say it originated from The Bible….
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
Kerry doesn’t know it, but the above quote could easily apply to him when he opens his mouth about climate.
Proverbs 17:28
New Living Translation
Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent.
What is it with the Obama/Biden Administrations? They seem bound and determined to insult and defame our allies and cozy up to our enemies. Are progressives all self-loathing masochists?
Communists are their friends.
Who knew that the lowly chocolate bar would produce such nonsense.
I see he didn’t say anything about Cdn and USA coal exports out of BC. BC exports tons of USA coal (as well as its own) to mostly Asian markets. BC has the biggest coal exporting port in North America. But, the Biden administration and Trudeau are bum buddies, so, yea, pick on the Aussies.
“John Kerry — throwing America under the bus for personal gain and advancement since 1971.”
And now trying to add Australia.
An interesting situation caused by China’s refusal to buy Australian coal recently is that China is buying it from the US. https://www.thegwpf.com/chinas-us-coal-imports-jump-748-amid-australian-trade-dispute/. I bet Kerry is really disapointed about that.
He should go and personally stop the boats carrying coal from leaving the American shores.
John Kerry is not nearly ashamed at Australia as Australia is ashamed at John Kerry.
What a bloody dill you are, Kerry. Suggest you learn something about Australia before you open your big mouth.
PS While you are there learn something about science too.
Using Australian coal in China benefits the planet as a whole in that Chinese coal is largely high-sulphur, leading to smog, acid rain, and similar unpleasantness, but Australian coal is low-sulphur leading to reduced health problems and cleaner atmosphere. Regardless of the US climate religion, China will continue to burn coal. Is it better that they try to reduce the unpleasant results ?
If the “Diggers” didn’t do it, then someone else would come along and take over the work.
I suspect that John Kerry left his “page” on a Swift Boat in Viet Nam along with his integrity, honor and contact with the truth.