The Paris Climate Accord is a farce. It’s a farce because China supports it. China supports it because it handcuffs the United States and allows China to catch up both economically and militarily. Why Europeans want this is beyond my comprehension. China is building coal fired electricity plants at a massive rate. An article by the Yale School of the Environment is either naïve or complicit in promoting the idea that China is concerned at all about the environment or is grappling with the duality of being “carbon neutral” while growing their economy.
A total of 247 gigawatts of coal power is now in planning or development, nearly six times Germany’s entire coal-fired capacity. China has also proposed additional new coal plants that, if built, would generate 73.5 gigawatts of power, more than five times the 13.9 gigawatts proposed in the rest of the world combined. Last year, Chinese provinces granted construction approval to 47 gigawatts of coal power projects, more than three times the capacity permitted in 2019.
China has pledged that its emissions will peak around 2030, but that high-water mark would still mean that the country is generating huge quantities CO2 — 12.9 billion to 14.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually for the next decade, or as much as 15 percent per year above 2015 levels, according to a Climate Action Tracker analysis.
Yale
Do the authors really believe that local government planners in different parts of China are at odds with the central government? China is a communist nation that rules with an iron fist. They are sending at least a million Uighurs into internment or re-education camps because of their religious beliefs. If the Chinese communist government can do this to this many people in a far off province does anything really think any local government can go against the central government?
Additionally, a struggle is underway between the coal sector and government forces pushing for a more rapid transition away from coal-fired power. In recent months, both the environment ministry and top Communist Party leadership reprimanded the National Energy Agency for approving too much coal-fired power too fast. President Xi delivered a widely publicized speech before the country’s top financial planners on March 16 in which he said the years leading up to 2025 would be critical to ensuring that China’s emissions peak by 2030. Many analysts saw this as a sign that the country’s leadership is unhappy with provincial and local government planners who have approved the increased coal-power rollout.
Yale
Cheap energy allows a country to expand. This is why oil has been the cause of concern since its discovery. If we’re going to be forced into a world of electric everything and the United States is to stay competitive in the world we need to start building nuclear plants. Nuclear will provide more clean electricity at a relatively cheap cost while China can be saddled with all the non-carbon dioxide pollution coal produces. That will destroy their natural resources.
China has United States envy. In a short period of time we went from a satellite of Great Britain to the most powerful country in the world. China only came out of the dark ages in the 1980’s and have been accumulating influence and wealth on the backs of the American consumer. They are capitalizing on our short attention spans and preference for low prices at all costs. It is clear more than ever that we should never open up trade to communist nations. If their people are not free and their government is not democratic in its principles then they cannot be trusted.