China’s Climate U-Turn
December 12, 2018
By Paul Homewood
A must read GWPF analysis of developments in China’s energy policy since the Paris Agreement:
Patricia Adams is an economist and the executive director of Probe International, a Toronto based NGO that has been involved in the Chinese environmental movement since its beginnings in the mid-1980s.
Her paper can be read here:
She is confirming much of what I have said in recent years. The only thing I would take issue with his her description of there being a U-Turn. In my view, China never had the slightest intention of being serious about cutting emissions.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on Roald J. Larsen.
As I remember: China’s submission to the Paris climate conference was simply to ‘look at’ emissions in 2030 and then decide whether to take action 🙂
China is serious about improving air quality and reducing waste streams into the environment. Colleagues were commenting on how environmental enforcment in China is driving up Chinese chemical pricing and disrupting supplies. There were protests if not riots last winter in and around Beijing protesting the forced-march reductions in distributed combustion power and heat.
The social and economic costs rise high enough and fast enough and u-turns are inevitable. Marcon knows what a yellow vest looks like. They wear those in China too.
Why any surprise?
From Obama’s ‘The White House – Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release September 25, 2015
U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change’:
“China will lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level by 2030 ….”
Translation: ‘China may increase CO2 emissions every year up to 2029’
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/25/us-china-joint-presidential-statement-climate-change
I wish to complain about this Plan what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very Conference.
O: Oh yes, the, uh, the Green Paris Plan…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?
C: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!
O: No, no, ‘e’s uh,…It’s resting.
C: Look, matey, I know a dead Paris Plan when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.
O: No no It’s not dead, It’s, It’s restin’! Remarkable Plan, the Paris Green, idn’it, ay? Beautiful Press Releases in the Guardian!
C: The Press Releases in the Guardian don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.
+1
Thanks Graeme – Half way through your first line I burst out laughing! It brought back happy memories from 40 odd years ago, when we used to recite all the Monty Python skits (rude bits and all), while enjoying drinks outside our local on a summers evening. Made the holiday-makers blush…
Your’e a very naughty boy…
Sound economies and part-time unreliable electricity don’t go together. They will all find out sooner or later, some the hard way and some by using the brains they were born with.
“Sound economies and part-time unreliable electricity don’t go together”
I often try to warn family members of what lies in store, if the current lunacy doesn’t come to a stop. It’s not just that the power goes off – most people still assume they can get by with mobile phones, but only a handful of base stations are sited at existing telephone exchanges with diesel generators. Most are at street corner and rural locations, powered from local mains supplies. The same goes for “Fibre To The Cabinet” fast broadband, and any VOIP telephony services, which require a local power supply and working internet. As the good people of Lancaster in the UK found out in 2014, during the severe flooding, most of these have as little as one hour of battery back-up, and after that you can kiss good by to your “permanently connected” world.
https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/living-without-electricity
I’m keeping my slow (about 15meg) copper broadband and phone service for as long as possible, and my router will run happily off 12volts DC. So as long as BT’s local exchange genset keeps running, and my own power arrangements hold up, I will have some sort of service.
Sorry, it was in 2105…
Just remember, in order to control populations, you need to restrict both movement and communication. All totalitarian regimes begin by doing both.
Been Making this Comment for Years…
China will play the game and produce and lay out all of the solar panels suckers around the world will buy. Meanwhile they keep building coal fired power plants. They like to put other countries at a disadvantage.
I entirely agree with Paul that China has never intended to cut its emissions. The reality is exemplified by the ease with which it outplayed the US in pre-Paris negotiations – exploiting Obama’s determination to secure his “legacy”. Just consider for example the detail of the text agreed at the “groundbreaking” US/China summit in November 2014: http://tiny.cc/davyjy. In section 2 the parties confirmed their commitment to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” – i.e. the freedom of “developing” countries (including China) to prioritise economic development whereas “developed” countries (including the US) are to prioritise emission reduction. Then in section 3 the US agreed to emission cuts of 26-28% whereas China agreed merely to “peak” its emissions “around 2030” – i.e. to go on emitting for another 16 years, with no mention of reduction thereafter. And those principles (and more) were subsequently incorporated in the Paris Agreement. The only difference now is that commentators such as Patricia Adams are at last beginning to notice what in fact has been going for years. No need for a Chinese U-turn.
It appears that Patricia Adams has done some good work as long as it wasn’t involved with the green climate monster and thinking it is a unicorn. Maybe she is backing away from the Slauson Cutoff. [A routine by Johnny Carson, playing Art Fern.]
Hopefully people will start understanding what CO2 reduction is all about. You can’t claim victory because of numbers of adherents when the goal is continually missed. The best part is the outcome is no different….. no matter what is claimed. Natural climate variations will continue to be the “normal”.
I was under the impression that the only emission reductions China agreed to were as a percentage of GDP growth, that is to say the portion of GDP ‘over and above’ their current GDP, and not before 2030 when the population growth is expected to start levelling off.
See above: Joe Public
December 12, 2018 7:34 pm
Add to that they intend building 200, yes you read that right 200 new Airports.
The carbon footprint of those is also going to be enormous, as is all the aircraft using them.
see
https://www.thegwpf.com/climate-leader-china-plans-200-new-airports/
The Chinese mindset and way of doing business is vastly different from the Western one. It is something which very few realize, understand or appreciate. As an international businessman, Donald Trump learned it well and acts accordingly.
GWPF makes good the analysis and in your conclusion Paul, the evidence is irrefutable, then why is that the green mongs are always so defiantly telling us about the PRC racing to go green mental?
Global warming the myth built on a dungheap of the consensus of
zeromodelled science and befogged in a filthy reeking cloud of flying lies.China is a nonAnnex country
“In my view, China never had the slightest intention of being serious about cutting emissions.”
Absolutely correct Mr Homewood – they are not that stupid.
BUT let us let the lady have her slight self-delusion, it may not be good for her mental health if she realises the truth.