Reposted from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
OCTOBER 16, 2021
By Paul Homewood
Signs that China is already backtracking on its climate pledges:
China plans to build more coal-fired power plants and has hinted that it will rethink its timetable to slash emissions, in a significant blow to the UK’s ambitions for securing a global agreement on phasing out coal at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.
In a statement after a meeting of Beijing’s National Energy Commission, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, stressed the importance of regular energy supply, after swathes of the country were plunged into darkness by rolling blackouts that hit factories and homes.
While China has published plans to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, the statement hinted that the energy crisis had led the Communist party to rethink the timing of this ambition, with a new “phased timetable and roadmap for peaking carbon emissions”.
China has previously set out plans to be carbon neutral by 2060, with emissions peaking by 2030, a goal analysts say would involve shutting 600 coal-fired power plants. President Xi Jinping has also pledged to stop building coal plants abroad.
“Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced,” the statement said.
“Given the predominant place of coal in the country’s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimise the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs, and continue to phase out outdated coal plants in an orderly fashion. Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified.”
Beijing’s renewed embrace of coal – apparently at odds with Xi’s state climate ambitions – are likely to cause alarm in the run-up to Cop26.
George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre and the author of Red Flags: Why Xi’s China Is in Jeopardy, said Beijing had been forced to revise its plans in the face of the reality of economic problems and power outages.
There is nothing new about the expansion of coal power, which we have known apart for a long time.
But what is significant is the statement from Premier Li Keqiang, which suggests that energy security is now the key objective rather than emissions, and that the promise to peak emissions by 2030 may be rethought.
Reading between the lines, it appears there is a power struggle taking place between Li and President Xi, who is said to be unlikely to turn up in Glasgow. The Telegraph’s Ben Marlow believes this may be because Xi is afraid of a coup if he leaves the country. He is already in trouble on other fronts, such as his autocratic style of government.
As I have commented before, Xi’s promises of peak emissions and carbon neutrality by 2060 are worthless. When he is eventually ousted, as happens to all Chinese leaders, his policies will accompany him into the wilderness.
New leaders will disassociate themselves with his failed agenda, and all of the country’s problems will be blamed on Xi personally. Whatever pledges he may have made to world leaders will mean nothing to his successors.
We are already seeing how damaging the energy crisis is to China’s economy, regardless of the cause. What is inevitable is that any serious push to phase out coal power will cause immense harm to economic growth and people’s standards of living.
This would in turn be an existential threat to the CCP itself. Li seems to have realised this, and may be positioning himself for a challenge.
Either way, the West can forget about any meaningful concessions from China at COP26.
China has no intent of destroying their own economy by virtue signaling. Any green lip service they offer is a mirage that serves only to placate climate alarmists.
“China has no intent of destroying their own economy by virtue signaling.”
Correct. Their intent is to destroy our economy via our virtue signaling. All they need to do is look good enough to placate the eco-loons so that we continue our downhill slide.
I don’t think they need to do anything at all except sit back and laugh – our home grown econuts will work themselves into a frenzy banning and outlawing every damn thing that they can in an orgy of self-satisfied virtue signalling, taking us and our way of life down the plughole with them.
Yes..but China will continue to drain western currency by trading Lithium storage, solar panel, electrics and electronics and of course bikes. Electric cars are also on the horizon from that country.
What’s for China not to like about Western Green Hysteria?
And as the ecowarriors manage to make pipelines unbuildable, China will shut down all its plastic injection factories ….riiiiiggghht.
Everyone who thinks there is anything that compels Xi to “placate the eco-loons”, raise your hand. Yeah, I didn’t think so.
As long as the eco-loons stay in power, China benefits. Xi doesn’t have to agree with their reasons or even their agenda to want to placate them and I’m quite sure he doesn’t. I’m also quite sure he’s in favor of the inevitable consequences of their goals, which are to the benefit of China at our expense.
If the West is intent on economic and cultural suicide, China has no obligation to stop us.
On this, the rest of the world should follow China’s lead.
Rather than a split between Xi & Li, I think you put your finger on it. Trying to run COP26 without China, the world’s #1 CO2 emitter is going to make John Kerry and the United States look ridiculous.
The rest of the world may need to ask itself about the wisdom of following the United State’s lead?
And when 3.5 trillion printed dollars, for the Green New Deal, hits the world economy it will drive inflation around the globe…
China has large coal and uranium reserves. Exploiting them can bring the country energy independence. That’s why there is a massive commitment to EV production using coal and nuclear plants, obviating the need for oil imports.
Thus China has 292 plants permitted and 186 under construction. With 2990 plants already in operation, the fleet is on course to expand from 2990 units to 3468 in the next two years are so. These are hyper-clean and efficient.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JKJJa-jwK6YpkEQKP2bcENHR2yoS40ur8baQnIXHtIU/edit#gid=581593862
Thirty-six additional nuclear plants are targeted for construction as well.
We’ll be seeing many more “carbon neutral” tankers of oil being shipped to China from Angola and elsewhere. That was a China world first! Their next world first will be long contracts for carbon neutral coal. China has come to understand that Western politicians will believe anything China says.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me many times and my stupidity/alterior motives are displayed.
Speculation. what China intends or does not intend is hardly transparent.
No speculation here. The Chinese are pretty transparent about their goal to replace America as the dominant military and economic super power and to replace the dollar with a manipulated yuan as the worlds reserve currency. If you don’t think they’re smart enough to provide lip service to green and then sit back and watch their biggest economic and military rivals self destruct at the hand of green wokesters put in power by our corrupt MSM who for all intents and purposes supports the Chinese goal, you’re not giving the CCP enough credit.
“The Chinese are pretty transparent about their goal to replace America as the dominant military and economic super power…”
Exactly, anyone can read about it in Michael Pillsbury’s “The Hundred-Year Marathon”.
I agree China is going to keep burning coal because there is no alternative that does not adversely affect Chinese economic development.
China is the largest steel producer in the world. India 100 million tons/year is the next largest producer of steel.
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/china-crude-steel-output-to-top-one-billion-tons-for-first-time-further-rise-in-2021
China’s Steel Output to Top 1 Billion Tons This Year for First Time, Report Says
(Yicai Global) Dec. 22 — Chinese steelmakers will have produced more than 1 billion tons of the alloy this year for the first time ever, according to a new industry report.
https://www.worldometers.info/coal/china-coal/
China Coal Summary Table
Coal Reserves 149,818,259,000 Tons, 4th in the world
Coal Production 3,708,155,408 Tons, 1st in the world
Coal Consumption 4,319,921,826 Tons, 1st in the world
Yearly Deficit -611,766,418 tons.
China is not a one word thing. Predictions and reality about what China will do or not do, in the future will change if there is a change in CCP leadership.
One party governments become weird when there is a change in leadership. Xi has made mistakes and enemies. Xi has lost the confident look. If I was Xi, I would be worried about a personalized RNA virus attack.
“The Telegraph’s Ben Marlow believes this may be because Xi is afraid of a coup if he leaves the country. He is already in trouble on other fronts, such as his autocratic style of government.”
If Xi is in trouble, it’s with the CCP who controls the NCP and can just vote him out of office and replace him with someone else, perhaps an elderly patriot whose dimentia will make him easier to control…
The CCP tend to have a simpler system than that – if you get rid of one premier, the one with the most power and influence gets the job next, there are few, if any, behind the scenes controllers. When the downside of ‘being voted out’ is either house arrest for life or execution (if things went badly wrong), then most premier’s try to be as competent as possible within the constraints of the system, at least. If some of the US Presidents knew that if they lost an election then they would face the rest of their life under close house arrest or a firing squad, they might have done a much better job in office.
Was there ever any doubt?
I’ll frankly be shocked if the Chinese do not promise some nonsense that the feckless Western “leaders” pretend is a major breakthrough.
Maybe not necessary this year. They see the Biden regime as weak and ineffectual so no real need to placate it – if they turn up at all then they’ll do the usual holding pattern then leave.
Out of the text:
“Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced,” the statement said.
A nice lesson for some i.a. Europeans 😀
and Gringos, too…
Yes, diversity (e.g. racism) is not a factor. Everyone seems prone to taking a knee, begging, and hoping, dreaming for a secular treat. Good boy,girl.
I get from that the CCP is quite a bit to the right of the Europeans politically. China cares about their economy and even their people more than Eurocrats do. What about the ‘Cultural’ Revolution? Isn’t this precisely what we are worried about happening, but rather on a global scale.
The ugliness and hatred on the faces of the mindless ‘committed’ at rallies and protests tells me that Mao would be shocked at the excesses of these warriors if they ever were to be unleashed.
They may be to the right of Europeans economically, but politically, they are two peas in a pod. Both of them believe that those in power have a right to do whatever they want, and both of them believe that the people have no rights that government is obligated to honor.
The blackouts are likely planned and are part of their agenda.
Whether Planned Power or Planned Parent/hood, both are voluntary, and his or her Choice. The Green Leap a la Great Leap… Forward.
Take a knee, beg, good boy, girl. Here’s your secular treat. Timely.
China on a coal Spree: https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree Lets look at the data and see who is being taken for a sucker:
Here are the number of Coal fired power stations in various countries with the 2nd numbers signifying planned and population size in brackets:
… 4 / …….0….UK…………… .(66,600,000)
….19 / …..60….Philippines … (108,100,000)
….56 / …..93….Turkey ………..(82,000,000)
….58 / …..26….South Korea ….(51,710,000)
….79 / …..24….South Africa … (58,560,000)
….90 / …..45….Japan ………..(126,300,000)
241 / ……4….US ……………(328,200,000)
…468 / ….27….EU ……………(446,000,000)
…589 / ..446…India ……… (1,366,000,000)
2,363 / 1171…China …….. (1,398,000,000)
China called on rich countries to “pay their debts” on climate change at global talks criticizing developed countries for not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide finance to help poor countries do the same. https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/23/china-will-lead-the-world-in-nuclear-energy-along-with-all-other-energy-sources-sooner-than-you-think/amp/
There have been quite a few articles about how many coal powered electrical generation plants are being planned by China, India, and a number of other countries. The reported numbers change from month to month, if not from week to week. None of the published totals I previously saw have approached those in the list you provided. Yale has a different type of crystal ball?
Gee Andy, were talking Poison Ivy League here! They got the memo from the Secretariat! You been away?
I read that Yale site every day- just to see what the Secretariat is up to. I had posted several comments to that item back in March. I post to most of their articles.
For crying out loud.
China has always made it clear that they intend to do whatever suits them best, in their own time, and to their own agenda. If that means letting delusional Western greenalists think they have either signed-up, or signed-down, to the global warming agenda, then so be it.
Why anyone would expect anything else from the CCP, beats me.
That, for me, is one of the most distressing things. When the CCP and Putin’s gas-rich Russia bending us over an energy barrel appear more rational than what we have to offer, it is a rum bloody do.
Ditto. I wonder if China and Russia make up false USHCN climate data like we do.
China is suckering the Western countries. Buy into climate change and once the west has shuttered its economy with this green garbage, China will shout “suckers” and then be the only major economy. The real sad fact is our so-called leaders cannot see this. They are responding to activist groups funded likely be China or other left wing groups like Soros.
They see it. They hope to profit from it. It being democratic gerrymandering, redistributive change, and labor and environmental arbitrage. China, in particular, as long as they are economically dependent, has a vested interest in sustaining the handmade tale(s). All’s fair in lust and abortion, I suppose.
Not China but the CPC. Not the West but Western elite. This global elite is only interested in more personal power for them. Like Jeff Besos or Tim Cook etc. they play on both sides.
It isn’t “backtracking” if you never intended to stick with your promise in the 1st place. And whereas the EU, Britain, Canada, the US, Australia and NZ governments are willing to commit economic suicide, the Chinese are more than willing to take their place. The problem isn’t China “backtracking” the problem is the suicidal stupidity of the first world elites.
Then: China doing what was best for China.
Now: China doing what is best for China.
No backtracking.
yes and no. They are clearly backtracking on their virtue signaling. They could have waited less than a month to make these announcements after COP, but they made them now, which kind of sticks a stake in the heart of COP. I think they decided reassuring their people and businesses that energy is now more important than Climate Scientology is quite necessary immediately; no ability to wait even another month. Nothing catches ones attention more than blackouts, whether in ones home, or ones place of employment being shut down. Worst of all would be Western businesses shifting production to Vietnam for fear of Chinese blackouts ruining their production deadlines.
According to the UK i newspaper (15th Oct) they have also failed to make “written UN climate commitments ahead of COP26” along with Saudi Arabia.
“Both countries……declined to submit updated pledges in time for the UN’s deadline this week to reduce further emissions ahead of the climate summit in Glasgow”
“Each country was expected to put forward their Nationally Determined Contributions…. setting out their renewed efforts to tackle climate change since 2016.”
¨As I have commented before, Xi’s promises of peak emissions and carbon neutrality by 2060 are worthless. When he is eventually ousted, as happens to all Chinese leaders, his policies will accompany him into the wilderness.¨
Is Mr. Homewood a regime-change artist? NED or CIA, or Soros, anyone?
Wonderful how Brzezinski’s geopolitical blather backfires.
Anyway foreign ¨investors” are getting heart attacks over the Evergrande policy. Suck it up, guys!
Er, you do know how communist regimes work
Remember Zhao Ziyang, for example?
Ummmm, who???
There’s your homework…
And a steady stream of replacements. 10-15 years seems to be a good run so Xi Jinping at 11 years in power is probably due to be ‘retired’ in the next couple of years anyway. Wonder which direction his successor will take?
To the UNhinged China makes climate pledges of a sort
For its Belt and Road it will do what it considers necessary
The Chinese people just have to accept what the CCP demands of them, enduring blackouts is probably one of the less onerous demands.
The West will do its best to emulate the model.
Odd, no comments from Griff?
Don’t jinx it
He’s busy stabilising the climate. Do not disturb.
And, to add insult to injury, Klimate Kommissar Kerry will go to Glasgow empty-handed, hat in hand, without passage by Congress of numbskull Biden’s climate ambitions. We’re winning, and that’s a win for humanity.
It seems that Kerry has some investments in Chicom slave labor.
There’s Biden with his Chicom investments/bribes, and now Kerry, in bed with the Chicoms.
Raise your hand if you thought China actually would retreat from their previous promise to continue emissions until 2030 when they would consider reductions.
Anyone? Anyone?
No, Joe Biden and John Kerry, you don’t count.
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Great offer for Greta ::D
The UK has a population of 67 million and 39 million middle class, powered by :
3 coal fired power stations (soon to be 1 and then none)
32 gas fired power stations
8 nuclear power stations
..and some renewables.
+ 16% of power from France, Holland and Belgium
China has a population is 1,400 million (1.4 billion) and 880 million middle class, powered by:
1082 coal fired power stations (200+ planned),
50 nuclear power stations
and a lot of hydro and some renewables.
The talk of the UK exporting CO2 is meaningless because it is always stated without context or scale. The UK’s 39 million middle class is dwarfed by not only China’s massive soon to be 1,000 million middle class but also India’s 300 million middle class, as well as the enormous differences in power generation.
China needs Xi Jinping to go. His short-termist strongarm tactics are wasting China’s natural advantages.
The bluster over Taiwan is a good example. He needs to keep having spectacular assertions of strength to maintain his political momentum.
Under Deng Xiaoping they just quietly built up China – relying on their natural endowments in people, agriculture and minerals. And they became a superpower.
The West couldn’t dream of China getting as useless a leader as Xi. But a collapsing China is even worse than a growing China.
They are our rivals, not our enemies. They need Xi Jinping to go and so we do too.
Wrong: they are our rivals AND our enemies!
I am not saying you are wrong, but China seems to be a lot more nuanced than we make it out to be:
The Rise of the Xi Gang: Factional politics in the Chinese Communist Party
https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-rise-of-the-xi-gang/
Wang Huning, “The Structure of China’s Changing Political Culture”
https://www.readingthechinadream.com/wang-huning-ldquothe-structure-of-chinarsquos-changing-political-culturerdquo.html
And the ironic thing is that Xi is originally from the Shanghai Faction which has been pro-Western and cosmopolitan and he rose on an anti-corruption platform. Whereas his #2, and likely replacement, Li Keqiang, is from the CCYL Faction which has been pro-countryside and pro-middle class. Of the two, Li Keqiang would be considered the hardliner. From Wikipedia:
Xi has been able to bridge the gap because he spent many years in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution.
So, for me anyway, trying to interpret any of this is difficult. IMHO
For the few that might be interested in this arcane topic, I would also recommend:
The Triumph and Terror of Wang Huning
https://palladiummag.com/2021/10/11/the-triumph-and-terror-of-wang-huning/
One might want to start with this article before getting into the Wang Huning article I posted above.
Sorry to drift from the CAGW theme, but I feel that understanding these relationships and background, will help WUWT readers better understand climate change pronouncements out of Beijing.
I am no expert on any of this, but just want to point out the nuances and complications. So, I present all of this as background reading only.
Thank you. This is important. Background reading much appreciated.
From my perspective it is Xi who has the reins at the moment and he is the one riding a bellicose warhorse of rhetoric.
But there must be things I don’t know in the background. There must be reasons he is driven to act so ungentlemanly.
Having read that article I am intrigued by the similarities to the ideas of Sayyid Qutb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb
He also went the USA and saw materialism destroying morality and civil harmony. But his answer was the traditional one of religion.
In a way the CCP is a religion too. But not as open about it and so not as satisfactory.
“… build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs, and continue to phase out outdated coal plants in an orderly fashion. Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified.”
The most powerful statement ever made by China on the subject of energy source. Not one breath about using another watt of worth less than nothing sunshine and breezes.
China has accepted near total dependence from the West on energy intensive manufacturing and has zero fear of embargoes or any type of trade retaliation. The hook has been set in us suckers. They can now reel us in while enjoying the jobs, tax base and profits while we have unemployment, inflation and dramatic increases in National Debt (much of it owned by China).
The business model in the West of manufacturing nothing and importing everything to reduce emissions and save energy has failed. Should that be surprising?
“China plans to build more coal-fired power plants and has hinted that it will rethink its timetable to slash emissions, “
Well china probably has lot crappy or broken coal power plants to replace, but does anyone think they can consume a significant percentage of more coal then they already consuming.
Does peak coal not exist for the chinese government?
Also Chinese coal has always been expensive, and world coal price are soaring.
Also a government controlling the economy has never worked in the past, and no reason
to think China has any special magical abilities in this regard.
The obvious is, that China is at Peak Coal. And as always been the case some kind civil war
is just around the corner. Boom time, is done. Anyone not already left town, is an idiot.
But there has never been shortage of idiots.
You have a good point gb. On another thread I argued that China’s fortunes basically depended on the US (Europe, too, for awhile but they are now longterm basket cases).
First, a war torn Japan was boosted to the world’s #2 economy by US largess and then smokey China was pushed up into #2 spot, the ‘miracle’ of China definitely a US creation. The difference between China and Japan is that the latter brought plenty to the table, the former nothing but cheap labor.
Yeah China is looking at peak coal and peak everything else. I visited some chemical plants in China during three business and conference trips 2012 to 2015. The plants were designed on US 1950 patents, without the common sense items like heat recovery for downstream processes, and they cannibalized mediocre spec product to produce the main hi-spec finished product at~50% of capacity (modern producers get ~90+% hi-spec). Their mining and processing ops are dangerous and forget about the environment. NGO and activist sinophile sycophants give China a pass that would never happen with a Western operation.
According to this article at PA pundits
China generates 53% of all coal fired power in the world but burns less coal to do so than the rest of the world does for its 47% share because China has been an early adopter of the most recent advances in coal generation technology.
https://papundits.wordpress.com/2021/06/05/coal-fired-power-dying-not-so-fast-part-three-coal-fired-power-in-China
China never intended to follow the regressive “green” agenda — they just want everyone else to follow it, plus they know more CO2 is good for the earth … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Iu9D5RhqQ
So much for the claim that China was abandoning coal.
What they say is not what they do … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Iu9D5RhqQ
Totally contrary, of course, to the behaviour of the West’s elite film-stars, politicians etc!
Secret Chinese campaign poses a threat to global net zero efforts
A secret Chinese campaign to infiltrate global environmental bodies with their own agenda threatens united efforts to move to net zero.
Two years after the world watched as China manipulated the World Health Organisation to promote its narrative about the pandemic, evidence is mounting that Beijing is also working to reshape the way the world regulates the environment to suit its own ends.
“The West can forget about any meaningful concessions from China at COP26”…..the Good News just keeps on coming in from Glasgow. The Eco-Loons will whip themselves into a frenzy.
Anyone surprised?
China’s gonna China.
China will be in serious strife powering their economy with reliable coal fuelled generation while the developed world is extracting intermittent energy from fairy farts.
No problem – – just cheat. This is all about win the day perception plays anyway.
Go to the beginning, 1975 when the UN Lima Protocol or Agreement was signed by many developed member nations agreeing to the transfer of most manufacturing industry to developing nations like China which despite growing to become one of the world’s biggest economies remains a developing nation with privileges.
Then add a list of UN treaties and other agreements mostly imposed by the governments of member nations with no consultation with their constituents, all or most crafted to remove what had created national economic prosperity.
Consider UN Agenda 21 (now Agenda 30) and the many bans and restrictions imposed on building new dams, logging, marine park commercial fishing restrictions, no mining, etc. And emissions reduction in favour of so called renewable unreliable energy sources to replace reliable power station generators and that have increased the cost of living and business costs.
Net zero emissions was dreamed up at the Paris Conference at the end of 2015, Agreements signed during 2016 for emissions reduction targets nation by nation. Only a fool could not see that if net zero could be achieved the cost to economies would be substantial and therefore economic prosperity would decline markedly.
Climate hoax, as compared to natural climate variations, has always been a distraction away from the leftist, globalist objectives, as admitted by UN Official Christiana Figureres just before the IPCC Paris Conference end 2015, her speech was in October 2015. And others like her have confirmed the real anti-capitalism or anti-free market attack.
The Taliban now rulers of Afghanistan are sending a large delegation to COP26 in Glasgow.
The farce continues.
They should fit right in with the other religious extremists there.
China can’t be backtracking since I don’t think they ever did any tracking.
Meanwhile our energy is being destroyed by our politicians being wedded to “renewables” and when they reach the “end of the road” it will be too late to resurrect any coal or nuclear because we will be “broke” and out of expertise so unable to build any. China will offer to build us nuclear reactors but will charge us HUMUNGOUS amounts of money as we have no alternatives – God what idiots our politicians are – who the HELL votes for these morons ??
The evidence continues to mount that not many actual people, voted for these morons.
It is a good thing that COP26 will be slapped repeatedly with reality. A reality that all attendees should seriously consider.