Trust China on Climate – Really?

When will we learn China cannot be trusted?  When will we accept – from human rights to cyberespionage, coronavirus to climate promises – Communist China tells easy lies to willing listeners?  These lies advance their quest for power, forestall accountability. A gullible West wants to hear them.  Here is the latest.

Whether you believe shifting climate indicia are man’s doing or God’s, cyclic, existential, episodic, correctable by sequestration, reforestation, or compel the world ban fossil fuels – all discussed at Biden’s “climate summit” (maybe except for God), three facts are clear:  China pollutes the most.  Nothing changes without China.  China lies – now, about climate.

So, here is reality. Biden, Kerry, and the “apocalypse now” crowd claim the world is ending.  They ring the crisis bell, tell US taxpayers to fund Third World (can we still say that?) initiatives with hard earned US dollars (daily devalued by US federal debt).  They do press releases from private planes, saying more government control is absolutely, positively essential.

Notably, even leading climate scientists say the “apocalypse” talk undermines credibility, is nonsensical, counterproductive. The world is not ending, carbon can be removed from the atmosphere, market-driven shifts work, and the hype is not the answer.  AOC (Always on Cue), CNN, and other recent media hype instill fear but achieve nothing.  For that intent on carbon reduction, hope resides in more private technology, not condemning private technology. See, e.g., https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong/; https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-carbon-sequestration; https://news.yahoo.com/study-climate-change-can-be-reversed-by-planting-a-forest-nearly-double-the-size-of-the-us-180000751.html.

But the big issue is our stunning self-deception.  Here are incontrovertible facts.  If carbon is your nemesis, understand them:  China emits more than the US and Europe combined, on a beeline to emit more.  They do not care what the West thinks. China’s massive population needs – and is seeking – more energy, not less.  As the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported last week, citing the International Energy Agency, “China alone consumed more than half of the world’s coal in 2019.”  China created 9.8 billion tons of carbon emissions, will consume more each year this decade.  See, e.g., https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/.

China bought time last week – again.  They said they will hit max carbon emissions in 2030 but promised to “achieve carbon neutrality – net-zero carbon dioxide emissions – by 2060.”  Now that is noble, do you not think?  That is accountability.  Most attending will be dead and President Xi – now 67 – will be 106 if alive. Guess, we check in with him then.

Let us shake misconceptions. China deceives – all the time, incessantly, without hesitation.  Their denial and deception is an article of Communist faith. Lying to the West is disinformation at its best.  Why dress it up if accepted?  Just keep talking, right?  Why not?  Here is more.

A just-released Harvard study reveals China – whatever they say – underreports their pollution.  They fraudulently report data from five monitoring stations; we know, because we collect that data, too.  The statistically different data catches them in another falsification, and incidentally also hurts their own people – nothing new, entirely true.  See, e.g., https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-underreporting-air-pollution-levels-new-study.

That study comes the same week US officials concede “China may have compromised hundreds of federally funded scientists at colleges and universities across the country;” Great Britain joins the US in condemning China’s genocide, and Republican US lawmakers push Biden to declassify data on COVID-19’s Chinese origins. See, e.g., www.foxnews.com/politics/us-funded-scientists-compromised-china; www.foxnews.com/world/uk-lawmakers-pass-motion-saying-china-committing-genocide; www.foxnews.com/politics/hawley-braun-declassify-wuhan-coronavirus-intelligence.

Moreover, as China cheerfully nods and waves at virtual Biden, they “proposed 73.5 gigawatts of new coal-fired power last year, more than five times as much as the rest of the world combined,” according to the WSJ.  

Even in promising not to deceive, they deceive.  While coal supplies “57 percent of China’s energy,” and they promise less in 40 years, they are not dumping fossil fuels, just bending public perceptions to that idea. How do we know?  China is a whole hog on maritime oil extraction.

Say what?  Yes, say oil and gas.  What no one at the virtual climate summit bothered to ping China on – is their recent commitment to mega-investment in extracting oil from the South China Sea.  Using the “Sea Bull II” drilling system, China expects to pull major oil and gas from disputed South China Sea beds – the world be damned.  No, no, you say.  Yes, yes, and proudly.

“Natural gas hydrates, also known as ‘combustible ice’ or ‘flammable ice,’ are frozen fossil fuel deposits found in sea-beds beneath the permafrost,” and consist of “water and gas, typically methane.”  Since “energy experts believe the South China Sea may contain some of the world’s most promising deposits of methane hydrate …China – the world’s top importer of oil and gas – has identified ‘combustible ice’ as a potential new energy source,” and is ecstatic about it.

“Chinese state media boasted of allegedly extracting a ‘world record’ amount of natural gas from methane hydrate in the South China Sea last spring,” and is signaling “trial production” which is “a crucial step in the industrialization of methane hydrate.”  So, bring on fossil fuels. See, e.g., https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/04/10/china-drills-sediment-core-disputed-south-china-sea/?;  https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3128971/chinese-scientists-drill-contested-south-china-sea-amid-rising.

Corroborating China’s find, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has projected the South China Sea holds roughly 11 billion barrels of oil reserves and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.”  China knows it, loves it, and Biden-Kerry-Harris ignores it.  See,  https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/regions-of-interest/South_China_Sea.

So, if we may be so bold as to ask – Mr. Biden, Mr. Kerry, Ms. Harris, and all convinced China is a team player – what say you? If done with coal by 2060, what do you think they are using instead?  Oil and gas.  Let us review carbon production, the definition of fossil fuels, and what the South China Sea reserves mean.  Let us be clear, they mean China – population starved for cheap energy – will be using fossil fuels for the next century, likely well beyond.

What does that mean?  It means the West needs to wake up – on everything from human rights to cyberespionage, weapons modernization to space militarization, coronavirus to climate promises. China lies. They will continue, consistent with Communist doctrine, until called out. Trump did, Biden will not. When will we learn China cannot be trusted?  Time runs short.