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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to SMH Reporter Nick O’Malley, Trump’s victory in 2016 created a perception of “boom and bust” commitment to climate action. But Chinese leaders do not have to face elections, so China’s climate commitment to climate action is likely to improve “more rapidly and predictably” than the USA.
Power to change: Why the US and China must work together on the climate crisis
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By Nick O’Malley
JULY 2, 2021…
Months before the Paris summit began, the two nations shocked the world by announcing their own climate deal. China agreed to peak emissions in 2030; the US to reduce its emissions by between 26 and 28 per cent by 2025. Climate laggards would not be able to use the failure of these giant economies as cover for their own Paris targets.
But with Donald Trump’s victory, the US abandoned its efforts and the relationship between the two nations deteriorated.
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This boom-and-bust cycle of American urgency and inaction has not inspired confidence in China, says Li.
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Bernice Lee, research director for futures at the London-based foreign policy think tank Chatham House, notes that although President Xi Jinping does not confront the same pressures as democratic leaders, he is not immune from political gravity.
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Climate Analytics data is used to build the Climate Action Tracker, which judges the progress nations are making towards the globally agreed aim of holding warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
It makes for grim reading. Australian policies are judged as “insufficient”, China’s as “highly insufficient”. US efforts fall into the worst category, “critically insufficient”.
Hare explains this is a reflection of the Trump administration’s abandonment of the issue, and new rankings taking in analysis of the impacts of Biden-era policies will soon be published.
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While America’s climate plan will be tested at the polls again in 2024, China’s leaders, for good or ill, will dictate the course for the next three decades.
In that light, says Li, there is some reason to believe Chinese climate policy may improve more rapidly and predictably than America’s.
Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/power-to-change-why-the-us-and-china-must-work-together-on-the-climate-crisis-20210630-p585kj.html
The part I don’t get, is why reporters like Nick O’Malley fall time and again for the utter canard that totalitarian states could be better stewards of the environment than republics or democracies.
China is a polluted wasteland.
The reason of course is in totalitarian states, ordinary people have no democratic means to prevent their lives from being ruined by well connected industrialists. If the activity which pollutes the neighbourhood or wrecks lives is profitable for the people in charge, anyone who complains is more likely to be arrested than listened to.
I’m not saying that totalitarian states don’t listen at all – eventually problems get so bad the state has to act, or risk a violent uprising. But that problem action threshold is a lot higher in China than in democratic states.
Imagine if you lived in a nation like China. How desperate would things have to be, for you to risk incarceration and savage official bullying for yourself and your loved ones, by upsetting corrupt totalitarian leaders who are profiting from your misery?
Consider the arrest and harassment of courageous doctors who tried to warn the world about Covid. Or the case of China’s melamine adulteration baby formula scandal, in which an unknown number of babies died or suffered horribly because Chinese baby formula manufacturers added toxic chemicals to their watered down product to rig the quality test. Or that time China exported anti-freeze laced toothpaste to the USA, because sweet tasting anti-freeze is cheaper than aspartame. Or the Chinese toy manufacturers who use poisonous lead paint on children’s toys. Or that time China exported millions of fake medical Covid masks to the USA. Or all the Chinese companies feeding the US narcotics crisis by producing and exporting Fentanyl. Or China’s alleged widespread use of slave labour and genocidal mistreatment of minorities, to boost their profit margin.
China’s communist government has repeatedly demonstrated a total lack of scruples when it comes to making money. Their government only seems to take an interest in fixing problems long after the damage is done, when bad news threatens their grip on power, or their profit margins.
For every outrage we learn about, no doubt many lesser problems are allowed to fester and cause ongoing misery for ordinary Chinese people.
Given their track record of in my opinion utter disregard for the welfare of ordinary people, why would the Chinese government be especially caring, when it comes to climate change? Yet Western climate activists repeatedly somehow convince themselves that totalitarians would do a better job at fixing the world’s problems, than politicians elected by ordinary people who don’t share their sense of urgency.
They blame everything on the great President Donald J. Trump, and it won’t stop. Regardless of the subject matter. It’s their easy way out.
Actually blaming Donald Trump though isn’t what’s going on here is it? It’s just a useless individual pretending to be a journalist making sh!t up because he knows the genetically stupid people will believe it. I could have written this buffoonery for a laugh.
…… although I would have blamed it it on George Bush for an even bigger laugh.
When people discuss other folks’ motivations, they’re actually pretending they can read minds. That’s what our journalist is doing when he imputes China’s motivations to American inconsistency. How can you say the Chinese regime wouldn’t have acted the same no matter what America did?
By the same token, you can’t say the journalist says things because he knows stupid people will believe it. You have to consider the possibility that the journalist is so stupid and/or deranged and/or deluded that he sincerely believes what he has written.
The thinking skills exhibited by the journalist are typical of ‘educated’ (really indoctrinated) liberals. Defund the universities.
You’re right – both explanations are viable. Either way, he probably gets paid, steals oxygen and exhales CO2.
Sadly, as an Australian, I think he is just another example of how stupid we have become because do not actually learn things that might allow them to challenge idiocy and factually incorrect nonsense. in that sense Australian schools are already Chinese and the teachers will realise just how stupid they have been, because, based on my understanding of history, the useless idiots were the first up against the wall so they could not be useful idiots for anyone else!
BTW, Australia is now largely again going through a lockdown over about 30 cases a day of COVID. In one state, South Australia, they have just increased their lockdown despite the case numbers being ZERO. People are panicking and clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper. The Sydney Morning Herald, where the article spoken of here was published, has always proved an excellent substitute for toilet paper.
Our politicians , of all persuasions, strongly resemble pond scum, except possibly the pond scum is more intelligent.
If the Donald broke it, we should bring him back and make him fix it.
The laughable part on blaming Trump is that big Donnie didnt break it all, US emissions continued to fall during his Presidency… I think they even exceeded expectations ! This Sydney dude even used to be their US reporter during this time and should know this, but the context of the story hes just re-writing a Greenpeace PR story as his own
Yes, thanks to the continued closure of coal power plants, which Trump absolutely failed to halt (and he didn’t do much for coal mining either)
So now it’s his fault the coal plants closed and reduced emissions?
Yes, the organ loosely referred to as griff’s brain works in mysterious ways. It’s tough tackling climate.
Here you go griff, was also posted twice this week and last:
Just asking for a friend, but if you tackle climate for a living, do you get a uniform and medals and stuff?
And it’s also DJT’s fault that China continues to build coal-fired power plants like they’re being poppedout of a Pez Dispenser. Right, Griffie?
Griff, please answer my question.
Would you prefer living in 1700 to 1775 when CO2 was so benign, or this terrible time in “dangerous” levels of CO2, 1950-2025?
griff don’t do questions.
Lol! He won’t answer a question like that. His ignorance of the present pretty much shows he has no clue about the past, either.
Oh, but like all climate ‘experts’ he is WELL versed on the future, right?
The future is certain; only the past is unpredictable.
Coal power plants were closed mostly through the action of state governors and power companies themselves (e.g. Texas, where considerable financial incentives given to solar and wind power generators by the state and utility deregulation required generators to be paid only for the power they produced, not for any unused reserve capacity they might develop or retain in the form of refurbished coal plants, all of which policy developments caused February’s power debacle in Texas, as this website revealed after February – but you must not have been reading that), not by the Federal government. EPA didn’t have to make any real decisions when these things happened; neither Trump nor they had any control over that.
But the uninformed will remain uninformed.
It’s been my experience that the uninformed relish and revell in their ‘uninformation’!
So you agree that Nick Malley is talking a load of *****?
And did natural gas have nothing to do with it? After all, what was replacing the coal power plants?
As far as I know, T rump never promised to close coal power plants. He knew that coal was our most abundant resource, and that, until we were able to replace it with ‘something’ it would have to power our nation! You don’t dump one natural resource without having a sensible and AFFORDABLE replacement. Wind and solar, clearly, are just NOT going to work! Goo back to sleep, Griff!
Correct me if I am wrong and having nothing whatsoever to do with “Orange Man Bad” the decline in the dependence of Coal thanks to new found and cleaner Natural Gas from “EVIL” fracking is what caused continuing closure of coal fired power plants.
Oh and Griff, how could Trump have prevented the closure of power plants? Where do you find in the U.S. Constitution the Presidents authority to halt closure of coal fired power plants?
Just look at us today. Our Current Chief Executive cannot even say or spell Coal Power Plant those four simple syllables would cause him to pause and replace them with ‘you know the thing’
“They blame everything on….”
I was taught that Leadership is about responsibility…for your decisions, their consequences AND those of your subordinates. Blaming others is the lowest form of management and the primary indicator of incompetence.
Cheers
Mike
It is actually quite ingenious when you are working with low-info folks who have abandoned critical thinking. You simply need to “create” some bad guy/entity: Big Oil, Russia Russia Russia, Trump… then assign all negative outcomes and resistance to your programs on that entity/person. That bogeyman will intellectually satisfy these folks.
Five years ago, all discussions with CAGW alarmists about contrary scientific data, ended with a link to desmogblog page about the contrarians links to Big Oil using a Seven Degrees to Kevin Bacon rubric. Thus, a photo of Willie Soon filling up at an Exxon station would be enough to prove his association. (sigh)
Some of us worked out a long time ago that a “General Derangement” has overtaken the Western World
You know me, you know what causes it: a Nutrient Free Diet revolving around sugar and washed down with alcohol
and as someone wise-guy (a military type, Mencken or a President possibly) once commented:
“Beware of ‘Stupid People” ##, especially when they occur in large numbers”
(##) Read= Cognitively Impaired
Such impairement(s) coming from (a less than exhaustive list)
The significant problem, hence the ‘large numbers’ part of the witticism, is that the thing is self replicating, viz= Positively fed-back
Somebody should do a Computer Model.
<a whisper comes in Peta’s ear>
Peta: “What. They did already?”
<lots and lots of them>
Peta: “I don’t believe you, show me pictures”
<Peta, go look for Climate Models>
Strangely, Peta is not surprised.
you mean doughnuts and beer isn’t a meal?
It is indeed a meal. I learnt this in grad school. The four good groups are alcohol, salt, sugar and grease. All is good.
Peta, should “talking to oneself” also be one of those dot points you listed?
From Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: #13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Get used to it. Here in the UK we had years of everything being Margaret Thatcher’s fault. In fact you can still, 30+ years after she left office and almost 10 years after she died, hear a lone voice crying out in the wilderness “Maggie done it!”.
That the Chinese leaders do not have to face elections does not influence the situation. China’s rulers are more sensible and practical than to delude themselves into believing in such a vacuous and fraudulent scam as ‘Global Warming/Climate Change’ China’s leaders are not insensible to wanting to clean up their environment to help the Chinese population and are continually taking steps to clean up real pollution problems while expanding the Nation’s Energy base and ignoring fool’s errands like ‘Global Warming/Climate Change’.
And is it Trump’s fault that Western Civilization has decided to commit suicide?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/08/the-industrial-revolution/
And what’s more impressive still is that Trump got the whole destructive process started long before he even decided to run for President. Talk about effective…
No, that was definitely George Bush’s fault. I know, because I read it somewhere, a few thousand times actually.
Everything is Trump’s fault but Trump is Bush’s fault. And Bush is Reagan’s fault.
Why should US and China work together on something that doesn’t exist?
There is no climate crisis…
Yeah, according to Moonbat, it’s now the climate collapse or something.
Like the quote of vague origin says, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”.
Why would China be remotely interested in stopping the West from destroying their sovereign power producing ability and from buying solar panels from Chinese factories?
Also, for those reading from outside of Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald is a proudly Left paper who managed to destroy their market share by only writing for the inner city latte set. Their circulation is less than most YouTube channels. Lot of opinion. Little actual reporting. Think of it as the NYT, but if the NYT had even less readership and editing.
Bingo!
Hey Nick what is the purpose of the 1,800 km Haoji Railway?
Hint: it has nothing to do with reducing emissions.
The chart showing the per capita CO2 emissions for US China and Australia demonstrates why China is not interested in limiting emissions, why would they, why should they?
Besides wind and solar hardware is only economically possible due to China’s coal-fired manufacturing, wind and solar cannot manufacture replacements because the EROEI ratios including storage are so low.
Thanks Chris, I’d not heard of that. Quite amazing.
That just shows the importance of destroying all coal powered generation in the West to, mitigate what the Chinese are doing.
After all , it’s our fault. Everything is our fault.
Nope…Trumps Fault. TDS…
China agreed to carry on increasing emmissions as fast as they could for the foreseeable future. In counter part the West agreed to commit economic suicide and ensure the economic dominance of China for the rest of eternity.
Now just supposing that China change thier minds about these VOLUNTARY “commitments” by 2030. What happens then? Do they get strong disapproval from greenies in the West? Will the new most powerful nation on Earth give a damn what anybody else thinks?
“China agreed to carry on increasing emmissions as fast as they could for the foreseeable future.”
Yeah, this writer makes out China’s 2030 pledge as somehow meaningful.
China can increase its CO2 output as much as it likes until 2030, and then it will re-evaluate its situation. Who wouldn’t agree to a deal like that? No restrictions whatsoever.
So China has no restrictions on it, while the Western World destroys its economies trying to reduce CO2 output. You can’t beat a deal like that if you are the Chicoms.
The Western Democracies are not committing suicide, they are being k!lled from within by home-grown socialists/authoritarians.
2022 and 2024 may be the last chance we have to save ourselves from these dictators who are running our lives into the ground.
I think the Push-back is coming.
Add this to the fact that China’s population has just almost peaked, so they have 10 years to keep growing their economy and their standard of living by continuing to put up every coal, hydro and nuclear plant they possibly can, while the socialist West lets people freeze or swelter in the dark, their lives not worth a damn compared to their energy transition to stop a made-up problem.
China isn’t “trying harder” on CAGW because they know it’s a complete farce.
China desperately wants the West to ruin their economies by wasting $100’s of trillions on CAGW wind/solar scams, while they strong arm mineral/oil/land rights from 3rd World countries through their Belt and Road Initiative, and develop LFTRs for rollout in 2030..
China is going to eat the world’s lunch…
Of course, they’ll eat just about anything…
China has some of the best food in the world, but their tyrannical government sucks.
You’re right that Chinese will eat pretty much anything: bats, bugs, dogs, rats, snakes, lizards, armadillos, etc., but I never ate anything too exotic during my business trips there.
Anything with four legs except furniture. Anything in the sea except submarines. Anything with wings except an aeroplane.
You call “bats, bugs, dogs, rats, snakes, lizards, armadillos, etc.,” some of the best food in the world? Seriously? Sounds to me like their food sucks about as badly as their tyrannical government. Perhaps why they HAVE a tyrannical government because their so p*ssed they have no decent food…
Have you tried any?
He’s a beef and two veg man.
Filet or Prime Rib. Baked potato with gobs of butter and sour cream. Whatever veggie. Salad, Ranch dressing. G&T.
Sounds good to me! 🙂
Do you try drugs? I don’t do them either.
Bob-san:
The quirky peasant food is grotesque but that’s all they could afford 40 years ago when China’s per capita income was just $300/year, but high-end Chinese food in large urban areas is incredible: Peking duck with plum sauce, Mapo Dofu, Char Siu, and a lot of street food is fantastic, too.
If it has four legs and isn’t the table. Well ok, any number of legs and maybe some tables might be worth a try.
You could be right about this, but I don’t understand the logic behind having everyone else ruin their economies. China needs lots of global consumers in order to run an export dominated economy. If China switches to a consumer economy, then the habit people develop by making choices, may quickly lead to demands for political choices also.
Kevin-san:
When China rolls out their LFTRs in 9 years, a second tidal wave of Western manufacturing will flood China to take advantage of energy that’s 10 times cheaper, with few business regs, low taxes and cheap labor.
The larger the energy cost differential, the more manufactures will be forced to China or go bankrupt.
Chinese think centennially, the West thinks quarterly…or, unfortunately, not at all…
These days ‘Trump’ has largely become a useful diversion (tactic).
Narrative driven media outlets like CNN found that their audience figures plummeted – down over 50% – when Biden took office.
Only a complete, total and utter moron would be blaming a one-term American president for [decades of] Chinese policy.
It would seem Nick O’Malley is such a person.
down over 50%
I read a couple days ago that Tapper is down 75%.
“Yet Western climate activists repeatedly somehow convince themselves that totalitarians would do a better job at fixing the world’s problems, than politicians elected by ordinary people who don’t share their sense of urgency.”
Because deep inside, “climate activists” are totalitarians themselves, believing they are smarter than everyone, know what’s best, and should have the power to dictate and enforce their wisdom on us.
“Because deep inside, “climate activists” are totalitarians”
Yes, they are. They like bossing people around.
Dreaming is nice isn’t it?
Speshly if yor shacked up in sunny Australia and have an epic coal & iron mining industries to bankroll you
Kanden Energy Solution Co. said on April 27 it is abandoning plans to build a coal-fired thermal plant in Akita.
The end of the project means there are no longer any plans in the works for new coal plants in Japan, aside from projects that have already started.
Last planned coal plant project in Japan scrapped amid green push : The Asahi Shimbun
does griff have a lump of coal where his brain should be?
just asking…
griff, Japan gets 26% of their energy from coal, 40% from oil, and 21% from natural gas. That’s 87% from fossil fuels, only 13% from low carbon sources of which a little more than half comes from nuclear and hydro. Not exactly
A “green” utopia. Once again, you’re trying to mislead people into believing that the “green” movement is more widespread than it is..
Sorry to have to point this out Griff old horse, but Japan got kicked out of China in 1945, so what Japan does to phase out its industrial economy, no longer has any impact on Chinese plans.
Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has, as a matter of policy, progressively become a “western” nation and as such it has assumed the western obligation to destroy itself so China can rule the world.
They don’t need the extra power, their population is imploding. And Japan has nothing to do with China, though both have been funding coal-fired plants in other countries. Which is a GOOD thing, those countries will lift themselves out of poverty, and be able to afford the things fueled power has allowed, like mass education, health care, retirement plans and stable governments and judiciaries.
There are 2 types of people in the world, those who want to be told what to do and those who don’t. The former has an affinity towards authoritarians. It’s really just that simple.
What nonsense. China does what’s in their own best interest. And pretending to care about “climate change” and “promising” to do something about it later (when, they figure, they will be even richer than Jeff Bezos). By then, they will will be the top dog, and can afford to throw poorer countries like the US a crumb or two now and then. Because they are so very generous that way.
We need to hear some words of sanity by a group of reputable scientist, engineers, mathematicians and statisticians who do not believe we are facing an imminent climate catastrophe:
“Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.“
The problem with politicians is that when something is deemed necessary “for the children” or “for the benefit of all the people” or any number of other righteous causes, cost is not a factor.
Virtue signalling and empathy mining are a politician’s secret sauce for reelection….
“Virtue signalling and empathy mining are a politician’s secret sauce for reelection….”
That’s Joe Biden. He exudes empathy, and he will help you with taxpayer dollars to demonstrate it.
“China’s climate commitment to climate action is likely to improve “more rapidly and predictably” So this is why CCP is building coal fired plants as fast as they can ship in the slave laborers, their “commitment to climate action”. Got it.
In the above article, Eric Worrall states: “The part I don’t get, is why reporters like Nick O’Malley fall time and again for the utter canard that totalitarian states could be better stewards of the environment than republics or democracies.”
Let me go a bit further, using Eric’s template: “The part I don’t get, is why reporters like Nick O’Malley fall time and again for believing totalitarian states have ANY credibility in what they state and promise.”
Just look to promises made under the Paris Accord and to agreements China made with WHO to discover the true source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (more appropriately know as the Whu-Flu).
Ooops . . . my typo at very end: should read “. . . known as the Wuh-Flu).”
“Wuh”, of course, standing for Wuhan, China.
“…President Xi Jinping does not confront the same pressures as democratic leaders, he is not immune from political gravity.”
Hahaha… You could say the same for Kim Il-Un. The political gravity in NoKo must be exceptionally weak. Any way, by 2030 I suspect the whole CAGW scam will have petered out and Xi, if he’s still around, will not even have to do anything to reduce emissions of CO2. By then, China should pretty much own the world economy as the West will have completed the destruction of our energy infrastructure and economies – unless, of course, some political gravity develops here.
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages… It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.
Thomas Friedman | New York Times | 8 Sep 2009
But that was then. Someone said “The past was a different country” Dead right. Thomas Friedman’s quote was before Xi!
If Trump really did cause the Chinese to not make an effort on global warming, I would say “Bravo Trump”.
[QUOTE FROM ARTICLE] It makes for grim reading. Australian policies are judged as “insufficient”, China’s as “highly insufficient”. US efforts fall into the worst category, “critically insufficient”. [END QUOTE]
According to Nick O’Malley, the US efforts at preventing climate change are worse than those of China, but China’s CO2 emissions doubled in the past 20 years, while the USA’s CO2 emissions have decreased slightly, mostly due to substitution of lower-emitting natural gas for coal-fired power plants.
The Paris climate accords put all sorts of restrictions on developed countries, such as the USA, Canada, Australia, and western Europe, but China only agreed to start in 2030. If Trump had agreed to that, China would have built massive numbers of coal-fired power plants between then and 2030, while Western countries crippled their energy production, so that most industries would move to China to take advantage of cheaper energy, taking their jobs with them.
President Trump realized that this would have given China an enormous economic and industrial advantage, all in the name of solving a non-problem, so that he wisely walked out, in an effort to compete with China on a more level (less tilted) playing field.
Does anyone really believe that China will do anything to reduce their CO2 emissions now that Hidin’ Biden is President, and they still have another 10 years to do whatever they please? After they manipulated a super-virus to make Americans and Europeans lock down in fear of a dread disease? Notice that they sent people from Wuhan to America and Europe, but not elsewhere in China!
Even after 2030, don’t count on China to do anything its leaders don’t want to do. The United States can’t impose its will on a country with four times our population and nuclear weapons. The best we can do is develop our technology in the best interests of OUR country, and don’t share it with China.
Was there an assist awarded to Bush?
But Pooh is just so cuddly! How could he ever be in the wrong?
Eric, please stop writing headlines with acronyms without defining them. That is so annoying.
For those of you who, like me, do not know what SMH meant in this headline, it stands for Sydney Morning Herald, the far left Sydney daily newspaper, Australia’s equivalent of the Graun (Guardian) or the NYT (New York Times).
Should be ” Grauniad”. So called because of the enormous numbers of uncorrected typos it used to have – and possibly still does.
The people at the SMH are certifiably insane. I am surprised that they didn’t blame Covid.