Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s energy minister Angus Taylor asks why is Australia the climate villain, when we only produce 1.2% of global emissions? But US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says pressure will grow on China.
The real climate change villain is CHINA not Australia, argues energy minister – but the economic heavyweight is escaping scrutiny
- Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the world need to focus on China
- China accounts for almost a third of global greenhouse gas emissions
- He said global leaders are too focussed on developed nations’ emissions
By CHARLIE MOORE, POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
PUBLISHED: 11:34 AEDT, 23 December 2021 | UPDATED: 11:53 AEDT, 23 December 2021
…
Mr Taylor said politicians at the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow last month were too focussed on reducing emissions in developed nations while China didn’t even show up to the talks.
‘I mean just under a third of global emissions now are coming from China and we’re responsible for just over one per cent as you know.
‘And yet the debate revolves around countries like Australia.’
…
‘Now the truth of the matter is that if China is a third of emissions and emissions are the problem then China should be a very significant part of the focus.
‘But we didn’t see that at COP, we don’t see that in the debate more generally. It’s an opportunity to try and destroy industries that people don’t like,’ he said.
‘People don’t like our mining industry, they don’t like our agriculture.’
…
Last week US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he believed pressure would grow on China to offer ‘something fundamentally more ambitious’ in the fight against climate change.
…
There is a very obvious explanation for why Australia is being bullied on climate change – the bullies smell blood. Our Prime Minister declared a Net Zero target just before COP26, signalling a desperate need to please. Now the global community is leaning on Australia, to see what else they can squeeze out of our leaders.
As for US national security advisor Jake Sullivan’s claim that pressure would grow on China, sure Jake, in your own time. This is the same Jake Sullivan who earlier this year begged OPEC to raise crude oil production, in a desperate effort to rescue Biden from the political consequences of his ill-considered war on US domestic energy production.
Virtue signaling is disgusting.
Why is Australia the Villain?
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
Australia is the climate villain because they aren’t outsourcing their CO2 intensive manufacturing to the great climate hero China.
China would have the world outsource ALL CO2 intensive manufacturing to the ChiComs so that THEY could deny shipments to any country that refused to KowTow to them and embrace the Chinese Communist system as subservient party members.
“Why is Australia the Villain?”
It’s because Australia is not cooperating fully with the climate change narrative. Australian politicians raise doubts. Climate Change fanatics can’t have doubts in the ranks. Totalitarian Climate Change Fanatics squash dissent, and that’s what they are trying to do to Australia.
So is auto-flagelation for signaling virtue…
It is a bit late now. The Australian leadership failed from the go-get by accepting the advice of green advisors in the public service, backed up by the usual lobbies and interest groups. We might be tempted to abuse them as scientific illiterates but they can’t help that, given the way the education system works.
The real failure was neglect of due diligence that calls for competitive tendering for goods and services, in this case scientific advice. They had and have a duty to consider the highly credentialled climate scientists who are not alarmed about the climate.
Scientific illiteracy of politicians is a given, green advice from government agencies is also a given these days.
How to call them to account for failure of due diligence is the big question?
The same applies to the plans that are on the table to destroy the electricity system.
Rate,
You are so correct. You have it in one. Your words should be on billboards across nations.
How do we excuse our senior scientific advisors for swallowing the snake oil, not studying the topic deeply enough to understand it, yet chanting the mantra as if it was correct?
For a start, 30 years of seeking a value for climate sensitivity and not finding it must destroy the central pillar, that CO2 in air is the control knob for global warming.
Why do these science policy advisors fail to conduct diligent, prudent science? It is bad that virtually none of them has written significant papers on climate change to advance understanding, but it is far worse that they advocate belief without studying and publishing analyses of the many deficiencies in the current story.
In an earlier era we used the derogatory term “Yes Men” to indicate lack of values. Geoff S
Well said Rafe and Geoff,
Spot on about the poor climate advise being given to Oz governments by the environmentally activist public service, CSIRO and the BoM who all slavishly follow the AGW line pushed by the IPCC. However, after 40 years of trying the latter have failed to prove that CO2 is causing any significant temperature rise due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Apart from localised urban warming there is no general global warming that cannot be related to natural causes, the temperature pause between 2000-2016 put paid to AGW, it is already falsified as a scientific theory.
Therefore all this globalist ballyhoo about carbon pollution and emissions is pure hysterical political nonsense, we need the extra CO2 in the atmosphere to enhance the plant environment, it won’t ruin civilization, lets get real here!
United Nations, controlled by China with the support of rent seeker nations and the 5th column in the developed world.
Spend some time worrying about things that matter instead of your imaginary AGW
1)Australia could tell “the international community” to pound sand if it wanted to. It is their choice to cave while China chooses not to.
2)I’m sure Jake has asked his staff to prepare a letter to China to ask them, pretty please, pretend to care about “climate change.”
Jake still hasn’t found the guts AFAIK to tell Biden to lay off wrecking domestic energy production, so the thought of him applying pressure on anyone is funny.
No he didn’t the Energy Minister is being misrepresented he didn’t mention climate, his comment was conditional and the second conditional ‘if’ in the sentence is understood:
‘ … if China is a third of emissions and [if] emissions are the problem then China should be a very significant part of the focus …’.
Well, we can’t go after the developing nations because that would be colonialism. LOL
China should not be able to paint itself as a developing nation. The affluent part of China is more developed than most European countries. There is tremendous inequality between affluent China and the hinterland, but that’s on the Chinese.
What the minister forgot to mention is that Australia’s per capita emissions are 17 tons while China’s are just over 7 tons. It makes no sense to compare Australia’s total emissions with China’s given that Australia’s population is about 25 million compared with China’s 1.4 billion. The only fair and sensible way to reduce emissions is to set a per-capita limit.
The only fair and sensible way is to reduce emissions that are a first-order forcing of climate cooling… warming… change. Per-capita limits are a social equity strawman that do not mitigate catastrophic progress.
Exactly…IF emissions are disastrous then China, one country, is responsible for 30% of the global emission load and thereby 30% of the much ballyhooed coming global catastrophe. Don’t give the ChiComs a Bye just because there are 1.4b people of which more then 700m have limited to no access to CO2 producing energy
” The only fair and sensible way is … ”
to demonstrate if “emissions are a first-order forcing of climate cooling… warming… change.”
And, after that, take appropriate action.
Per capita is as meaningless as square miles of territory when you’re discussing emissions that are spread equally throughout the atmosphere.
Well what measure do you propose? That all countries get to emit the same amount? That would allow Niue with a population of less than 2000 to emit the
same amount of CO2 as the US. Does that really seem sensible to you?
No measures are needed for a non problem but reduction by percentage of emissions if you must do it is logical. Every person/country would be contributing equally against their own emissions. But it doesn’t make any difference if no one pays attention to their promises and there’s no consequences. China committed to do nothing until decades in the future, maybe …. they are the only ones making their commitment and any future commitments will have a much higher starting point for reduction. Do you
think that’s fair to the rest of the world to add more emissions than some
countries are reducing because they have a large population? Isn’t it the same atmosphere?
The problem with that is that CO2 emissions are a good proxy for living standards and demanding that every country reduce their emissions by the same percentage reinforces existing inequalities and allows the rich to remain rich while the poor remain poor. Setting a per-capita limit allows the poorest countries to have the same chance of development as the rich ones.
Per capita emissions counting makes no sense. China’s middle class emissions are the same as Australia’s per capita and they number over 400 million.
Exactly!
Pretending that CO2 emissions are a problem and that the only fair way to mitigate them is to set per capita limits on emission is the intended mechanism for dragging the West down to the level of the socialist shistholes.
So you are reducing it to a fairness and economic problem. We are told that humanity is looking at a catastrophe which is a lot more serious (if you believe it) than per capita injustices; Australia’s efforts to reduce its emissions amount to nothing in the solution of the catastrophe, just token. At least you acknowledge that fossil fuels generate properity. And if renewables are so much cheaper than fossil or nuclear fuels why does not China just go all out renewable.
Markl, you are exactly right, each nation should lower emissions by some percent. Some western nations have reduced their emissions and they get zero credit for it. I think those nations should not make any further effort to reduce emissions until the rest of the world matches us, if for no other reason than to show good faith. That’s what I would suggest if I thought lowering CO2 made a difference but I don’t. CO2 is not the control knob for global climate period.
It really does not matter what measures anyone in the West proposes, the Chinese have no intention of reducing. In fact, they intend increasing. Look at the Chinese plans, they propose to lower CO2 emissions per unit of GDP while raising GDP substantially, which means they plan on increasing emissions.
If you sincerely believe that current and rising emissions are a threat, you need to focus on the world as it is and the entirely predictable future. That is one in which, whatever you may want, global emissions are going to rise, no matter what the West does.
The corollary is that if you are right, you should be advocating policies that will do some good in adapting to this future. Advocating unilateral reductions by the West is pointless.
And debating wh
If you reduced America and Europe’s emissions to 7 tons per capita, that would destroy their economies. Since China is dependent on exports, it would also destroy China’s economy.
It ain’t gonna happen.
The average per capita emission for the EU in 2018 was 6.6 tons. The UK was below 6. So limiting the EU to 7 tons would actual encourage economic growth in the EU not destroy their economies. And so would also grow China’s economy.
Your numbers are right so I stand corrected.
CO2 emissions per capita by country: link
GDP per capita by country. link
Apparently I do not understand the EU economy. In Canada, which I understand better, Industry, Transportation, and Commercial use 87% of the energy so cutting back to 7 tons per capita would bork the economy. link
Rubbish! Again, the game of averages. How about specifics:
Luxembourg 20.5
Estonia 15.3
Ireland 13.3
Czehia 12.2
Etc, but you get the idea
Politics is usually the art of the possible.
Consider that America tolerates large numbers of huge CO2 spewing luxury vehicles disguised as pickup trucks. They’re about 20% of the new car market. link
I leave it to you as an exercise to explain why that is.
that is a completely different argument from the claim that reducing emissions will destroy the US’s economy. All it shows is that it would be relatively easy to reduce the US’s emissions by getting its citizens to drive smaller more fuel efficient cars.
AKA Crappy Egg Cars that dent just by looking at them hard and haven’t the ability to get out of their own way.
Electric cars are even worse as they require massive 1/2 ton batteries that in turn require tremendous amounts of materials mining as well as steel, aluminum and copper which requires even more mining as well as Coaking Coal mining and gas/oil drilling for petrochemical stocks.
As long as the mining and drilling is required, I would prefer a car that survives an accident and doesn’t take numerous hours to refuel after a couple hours driving.
Not everyone has access to 480V at their home panel so most recharging is being done by 120V HOURS AND HOURS
Right. And ‘they’ don’t do that. In spite of all the dumb things they do do, they don’t do that one.
If you’re going to take away my pickup truck you’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers off the steering wheel. Something like that.
Like I said, politics is the art of the possible. Well, OK, Bismarck said it first.
Yep: “Something like that.”
Why? Its because you don’t get to vote on my PU, commie. As much as the Democrat Party is trying to reverse it, the U.S. is still a democratic republic where a central government cannot dictate to citizens beyond the Constitutional limits placed on the Federal Government.
Leftist hysteria and a complicit media allowed the installation of a puppet as figurehead in January, 2021. That will change over the coming few years because the wheels are visibly coming off the socialist bandwagon.
Besides which 7t/person is very far from net zero.
‘Per capita’ is a useful metric if the intention is to blame someone.
If CO2 were a problem you’d be much more concerned about total emissions.
Thus it can be can deduced you aren’t concerned about CO2 emissions.
If you main concern is reducing poverty and inequality then CO2 emissions per
capita is the only just metric. Otherwise you are just reinforcing current levels of
poverty and condemming billions of people to live in poverty.
I said nothing about poverty because it’s beside the point. You invented a straw man.
But in answer to your whataboutism, the obvious solution would be helping them to acquire cheap reliable energy so that they may lift themselves out of that poverty by following the same tried & true path the developed world forged.
Once desperately poor countries like China are doing just that, and so are many others.
Look at the trajectory of world emissions.
Developed countries are more or less flat but with a shallow increase.
By comparison, developing countries are on a 45 degree trajectory.
Do you want to keep all those millions of people poor?
Of course Izaak and other global government enthusiasts (I.e. socialists) want to keep the poor nation’s poor.
One of the founders of the climate scare even said that giving developing nations affordable fossil fueled electricity was like giving a child a machine gun.
Making some people poor won’t lift other people from poverty. Your Marxist carp has been tried many times and always failed
Indeed. If your primary objective is redistributing wealth to achieve equal outcomes (and this time socialism will finally work!), then pretending that we must all get the same allocation of CO2 emissions is the perfect tool for that.
Per capita emissions is a nonsense argument in this case. Bottom line is China emits a third of a third of the worlds CO2 unabated, while Australia only emits around 1 percent. No point cracking the whip at us when China is free loading.
we should thank China for adding all that plant food to the atmosphere
The bottom-line is Australia is a continental sized land mass, with only 25 million people in it.
Only a twit could expect Australia to have per-capita emissions anywhere near to China’s.
Ridiculous!
This is rank left-green anti-Australian prejudice, and pure bloody-minded stupidity, pretending to be objective, quantitative thought.
The only fair and sensible way is to forget about CO2 emissions altogether….
Ding-ding-ding!
We have a winner!
Per capita limits are beyond stupid
I live on the canadian prairies.
My emissions compared to someone living in the Sahel are 10x greater just to survive the winter, everything else is above and beyond that.
It’s also why emissions aren’t a zero sum game when it comes to immigration for poor warm countries to canada. Someone who lives in the Sahel or Bangladesh increases their emissions by an order of magnitude just to survive here.
But it’s why there is a long immigration line from those places to get here, and zero line in the opposite direction. Because they all reject what you are saying, all of them.
Russia is cold but poor, I have no intention to agree to be poorer to fulfill some brain dead definition of “fairness”.
When it comes to fair, I go back to that American general in Vietnam, “fair is when we win and all the other guys are dead”.
I’m quite happy to assist the poor to become wealthy, that’s fair, but you first if you want poverty.
Just move into a cave and donate everything you own to the third world.
Show us your virtue.
What silly garbage, the per capita emissions are like that because the continent is of a similar scale in area as China, but contains only 25 million people in it.
Ludicrous!
Think some time.
What Prime Minister has said a number of times in Australia and when overseas, G7 Meeting and later COP26 are examples, is that Australia (Federal Government he leads) has “an aspirational goal” to achieve net zero by 2050 and qualified that it will be based on research and development of new technology, if possible to achieve that.
Demands for ending coal mining and fossil fuel use was rejected and Australia joined several other member nations that rejected the demand.
Australia also refused to increase the Paris Agreement emissions reduction target for 2030.
Minister Taylor is of course right to complain about other nations targeting Australia and ignoring the sources of the highest emissions well exceeding what Australia contributes.
Some of the Green activists even count Australia sourced coal and gas export emissions in export market nations as the responsibility of Australia, and where the fuel is burnt as well.
Indeed, this extreme prejudice is exactly why Scott Morrison was not even going to attend COPE26, and everyone was having a little break-down about it.
It was their outrageous and continuing prejudice that Canberra objected to. He should have stuck to his guns and stayed away.
And stuff Princess Charles.
Our so called Conservative government still continues to drift down the woke path. This same Federal Minister is planning more very expensive very large batteries and other renewables. It’s getting more and more difficult to continue voting for this mob in the next election due about May next year.
Remember,Australia has enough fossil fuel resources and Uranium to last many hundreds of years.
Remember that it was Labor governments that started the so called renewable energy transition, after the Kyoto Agreement was signed by the Howard Coalition Government there was a tiny target for private sector renewable energy as part of the emissions reduction mix of initiatives but that was boosted to I think around 30% by Federal Labor and South Australia State Labor were first to push for renewable energy.
It is of course State Government and related Local Government Councils that grant Development Applications and other planning approval, and State Governments are responsible for electricity supply and before privatisation generators and transmission lines were State owned and some remain so.
Therefore when the Federal Government announces, say new gas fired power stations, implementation relies on each State Government support.
As you would know the batteries are/will be private sector ventures as are wind and solar installations and feeder transmission lines.
But you are of course right to point out Australia’s huge fossil fuel resources, Uranium, Thorium, Salts, etc. Renewable energy, intermittent and unreliable supply sources do not make sense, remove the subsidies and there would be no investors willing to take the risk.
IIRC the Howard government never signed the Kyoko treaty.
Kevin Rudd made it one of his first virtue signals when he succeeded Howard though.
(a pointless gesture, since Australia had already surpassed what was expected of it).
“As you would know the batteries are/will be private sector ventures as are wind and solar installations and feeder transmission lines.” As subsidized by taxpayers, electric ratepayers and all consumers affected by higher economy-wide cost increases. There is no free lunch, despite politicians’ blandishments.
Well yes, but we’re not allowed to use it, nor to be independent.
Princess Charles would be very cross.
Diversity, Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE). China has already aborted the baby, cannibalized her profitable parts, and sequestered her carbon pollutants for social, redistributive, and fair weather causes.
Shaming China for manufacturing the energy intensive products that a modern society is wrong. We in the West have abandon that effort to save energy and reduce emissions. China gets the jobs, tax base and profits. We get unemployment, lose of manufacturing base, an ever increasing national debt, and the privilege of waving made in China virtue signaling flags. A business model as unsustainable as trying to run a modern society on sunshine and breezes.
UN developed nation members agreed to allow manufacturing industry to move to developing nations, China for example, based on the UN Lima Protocol Agreement of 1975. Agenda 21 now 30 was added around 1990 tightening regulations effectively stopping emissions sources and supplies like water and much more.
“an aspirational goal” to achieve net zero ” is unnecessary for Australia since net zero was established for the continent of Australia following the launch of The OCO2 satellite. The single year of results that were published by NASA demonstrates this.
I have often marveled at the hubris and hypocrisy of Australians when they tell the World about the dread dangers of Carbon Dioxide and tell everyone that Carbon Dioxide will destroy all life on Earth, but then mine and ship millions of tons of coal, millions of barrels of petroleum, and Billions of cubic metres of natural gas to China and India every year, knowing that China and India will burn most of that Carbonaceous fuel to Carbon Dioxide.
But, hey, then it is China and India destroying the climate, not Australia, so Australians can continue to lecture the World about the dangers of Carbon Dioxide while signalling how blameless Australia is (?).
Wow, I bet Aussies would give their left testicles to have billions of barrels of oil & petroleum to ship anywhere, never mind China.
See, that would save Oz from importing all this fuel from Arabia, and paying the going Singapore variable market rate.
Get a clue Al.
Dear Mr.
“Australia is a substantial net exporter of energy, including coal and natural gas, with net exports equating to over two-thirds of production. Around 90% of black coal energy production was exported in 2019-20, as was around 74% of domestic natural gas production and 78% of crude oil production.
Liquefied natural gas exports grew by 6% in in 2019-20 and have grown by an average of 17% per year in the last decade.
Most of Australia’s energy imports are of refined petroleum products and crude oil. Domestic refineries imported over two thirds of their feedstock, while 59% of refined product consumption in Australia was met by imports.”
Australian energy trade 2019–20
A clue for you, from the Australian government site energy.gov.au
https://www.energy.gov.au/data/energy-trade
You claimed Aus shipped millions of barrels of oil & petrol to China & India.
As I advised –
get a clue.
My actual statement is above: “millions of barrels of petroleum”. “Petroleum” includes crude oil, condensate, and products refined from crude oil and condensate such as gasoline, diesel fuel, lubricants, etc.
Referring to Australian government statistics for 2019 published at https://www.ga.gov.au/digital-publication/aecr2021/oil the following figures and statements are found:
“About 80 per cent of Australia’s produced oil was exported in 2019.”
Crude Oil production:
“About one quarter of Australia’s crude oil reserves are located in the Cooper Basin, while approximately one quarter of remaining contingent resources are located in the Gippsland Basin. Based on 2019 production rates of 261 PJ (44 MMbbl), Australia’s identified crude oil resources would have a life of 22 years if all identified contingencies to development are mitigated.”
Condensate production:
“Australia has significant remaining condensate resources, including 7,321 PJ (1,245 MMbbl) of 2P reserves and 8,630 PJ (1,468 MMbbl) of 2C contingent resources in 2019 (Table 1; Table 2; Figure 1 and Figure 2). Aggregating Australia’s 2P reserves and 2C contingent resources gives a total of 15,951 PJ (2,713 MMbbl) of identified condensate resources. The majority of identified condensate resources are located in supergiant and giant gas fields along the North West Shelf. Based on 2019 production rates of 450 PJ (76 MMbbl), Australia’s identified condensate resources would have a life of 35 years if all identified contingencies to development are mitigated.”
Doing some math using the above figures (assuming the export rate of 80% applies equally to crude oil produced and condensate produced):
80% of Australia’s 2019 crude oil production is approximately 37 Million barrels;
80% of Australia’s 2019 condensate production is approximately 60 Million barrels.
Thus, by the Australian government’s own figures, the exports of crude oil and condensate from Australia both were many Millions of barrels per year. And these calculations do not include refined products, an additional potential group of exports.
Since the major destinations for Australia’s coal, petroleum, liquified natural gas, and Iron ore are China and India, there is no doubt that my statement of “millions of barrels of petroleum” being exported by Australia to China and India each year appears to be correct.
So if Australia didn’t export the coal and gas, another country would. And dirtier coal at that. Do you see the silliness of your argument now??
You have missed the point of my original post: I pointed out the hubris and hypocrisy of the Australian government lecturing the World about Carbon Dioxide production and its alleged disastrous climate effects (and lecturing Australian residents about the need for CarbonTaxes which were enacted and then removed, and the climate dangers of Carbon Dioxide production) while mining and exporting vast amounts of Carbon fuels that the Australian government knew would be burned, producing Carbon Dioxide.
Other nations do indeed export Carbon fuels, some of which are indeed poorer quality coal than some Australian coals. But, do the governments of these nations lecture the World about the dangers of Carbon fuels while exporting vast quantities of Carbon fuels?
Australia sounds like a distillery that sells vast quantities of alcoholic beverages while its executives lecture the public on the need for absolute prohibition of alcohol.
If the Australian politicians really believed their own rhetoric about the alleged dangers of Carbon Dioxide, they would be far more likely to be campaigning against the mining and export of Carbon Fuels, No?
Are you an actual bot? If so, you’ve been poorly programmed.
Yup, algo troll.
The point is it is a garbage concept in the first place, so demands for reductions of any kind of CO2 is just a political game with nobody actually achieving significant and ongoing reduction due to the effect on their home economy.
Since the West have intentionally built up the Chinese economy through displaced manufacturing it would be highly hypocritical to demand a reduction in the Chinese manufacturing capability unless the Western governments force at the same time a return of own country’s manufacturing capacity.
The whole CO2 discussion is a circular argument with no sensible outcome possible. The sooner that the UN give it up and let the world economies concentrate on a meaningful and achievable set of goals that actually improve disadvantaged people’s health and life expectancy the better of we all will be.
In 2020, Australia exported a little over 80 million tonnes of coal to China.
The same year, China produced 3.84 billion tonnes of its own coal. It’s likely that China will breach 4 billion tonnes in 2021, while sanctions have collapsed Aussie exports to China.
I’m pretty sure this is a scripted narrative generator, as no troll can be this dumb, nor this incorrect.
That’s exactly what Greta said about China.
I will believe sincerity in all such people when they go to China and protest in person.
The coming Winter Olympics will be a perfect platform to show virtue, beard them in their own lair.
I could care less of bleating and whimpering from a distance, same as China
Why? Because it has nothing todo with ‘climate’ and everything with dirty politics. And once you know that you also know that the whole climate change charade is a nonsense, is just a stick to whack the dog. The dog being anything starting with free: freedom, free thinking, free speech, free enterprise, free elections, free and so on.
I believe China will respond to pressure about CO2 affecting the climate soon after the drug cartels respond to pressure about fentanyl affecting “adverse life outcomes”, the condition formerly known as death.
The last theory on China, called “engagement“, was the more money and investment we pour into China the more democratic they will become.
What happened to that?
I wonder what would happen if Australia reduced its per-capita emissions down to China’s level. Wonder 2, What would happen if those countries which off-shored their heavy polluting industries to China took them back home.