No, it’s nothing virus-related for once, but it’s something that we’ve known China hasn’t cared about for a long time. For all the talk from the environmental Left about climate change, the truth is nothing will ever make a dent in their lofty goal unless China and India abide by their strict emission standards. The green agenda is also a backdoor to communism, but that’s a tale for another time. Actually, no—you already know that. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal is a prime example. So, while China may have lied about COVID concerning its release from its virology institute in Wuhan—we shouldn’t be shocked that they fell way short of their pledge on climate change (via Jim Geraghty):
The folks at Vox — the publication that launched with the slogan, “the smartest minds, the toughest questions”– took issue with that perspective, and wrote that their review of China’s policies “utterly destroy the conservative argument” and concluded, “China is waging an aggressive, multi-front campaign to clean up coal before eventually phasing it out . . . China is tackling climate change with all guns blazing. The US, not China, is the laggard in this relationship.”
Here we are, four years later, and the Vox assessment has proven spectacularly wrong.
China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, now promises that his country’s carbon emissions will begin to decline by 2030, while they’re growing at the fastest pace in more than a decade. Meanwhile, U.S. carbon emissions have slightly declined most years since 2007 — although last year’s significant drop is partially attributed to the drastic change in Americans’ behavior because of the coronavirus pandemic. Year by year, the United States is using less and less coal for energy production. In 2007, the U.S. generated 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide; last year, it generated 4.5 billion metric tons. China, by contrast, generated an estimated 14.4 billion metric tons in 2020.
Earlier this year, Jordan McGillis, deputy director of policy at the Institute for Energy Research, pointed out “with its March release of a new five-year plan (FYP), the 14th in its history, China has embarrassed its climate cheerleaders in the West. Beijing’s plan institutes no carbon cap, no coal phase-out, and no roadmap by which it will execute upon Xi’s words. Despite the carbon-neutral-by-2060 pledge, the FYP emphasizes the importance of coal to China’s continued development, not the emissions that come with its use.”
Without coal, China goes dark. In the United States, we’re the Saudi Arabia of coal, coupled with our natural gas reserves, we’re already energy independent. We’ve done our part. Despite what the liberal media says, our air quality is fine. In fact, it’s never been better and we’re at our most industrialized period in our nation’s history. Obama’s EPA even pointed that out as far back as 2015. I’m still not convinced that we should gamble with trillions of dollars in lost economic activity. Just like how the COVID experts were wrong about masks, the same clowns said back in the 1970s that global cooling would be an existential threat, with parts of the North American continent undergoing periods of re-glaciation. It didn’t happen. Then, these same people said global warming would melt the entire Arctic Ice Cap by 2013. The prediction was made when in 2007. By 2013, it grew by at least 533,000 square miles, roughly half the size of Europe. So, yeah—not gambling with the economic futures of millions to satisfy an academic exercise by white liberals on college campuses.