Climate Fantasy Watch, Part 1
The unveiling of the EPA’s new climate
regulations that won’t do anything for the climate is being marked as a
turning point by the Climatistas, and as such we’re going to have to provide
regular reality checks for this stupidity. If these new
energy-restructuring regulations (which is what they actually are) really take
effect and work as advertised, they will reduce total U.S. carbon emissions by
6 percent. This is why they will have no effect on the globe’s climate.
Ah, but you don’t understand, say the
Climatistas. Now that the U.S. is finally showing leadership—no
longer “leading from behind” on climate (heh—couldn’t resist)—the rest of the
world is going to salute and fall in line behind Obama. China, we are
told, just can’t wait to nobble its economy with scarce high-cost energy.
As proof, the Climatistas have been rolling out He Jiankun, chairman of China’s
Advisory Committee on Climate Change, who told a conference on Beijing on
Tuesday that China would now move to cap its emissions. Reuters
practically wet its pants:
(Reuters) – China said on
Tuesday it will set an absolute cap on its CO2 emissions from 2016 just a day
after the United States announced new targets for its power sector, signalling
a potential breakthrough in tough U.N. climate talks.
Progress in global
climate negotiations has often been held back by a deep split between rich and
poor nations, led by the United States and China, respectively, over who should
step up their game to reduce emissions. But the fact that the two biggest
emitters of greenhouse gases made unprecedented announcements on climate within
24 hours of each other sparked optimism among observers hoping to see the
decades-old deadlock broken. The steps come ahead of a global meet on climate
change starting on Wednesday in Germany.
The Guardian wet
its pants, too:
China, the world’s
biggest greenhouse gas emitter, will limit its total emissions for the first
time by the end of this decade, according to a top government advisor.
He Jiankun, chairman of
China’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference in Beijing on
Tuesday that an absolute cap on carbon emissions will be introduced. “The
government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year
plan, by intensity and an absolute cap.”
Perhaps the biggest beclowner was Ryan Cooper
in The Week:
The best-case scenario
for Obama’s new regulations on coal-fired power plants, released yesterday, is
that other nations will take them as an impetus to fast-track their own efforts
to fight climate change. Literally the very next day, that is
already happening, and with the world’s largest emitter: China.
All this was good enough to fool USA Today:
One day after the United
States said it would slash carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30%
below 2005 levels, China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, said
it would set an absolute cap on its emissions by 2016.
The announcement comes
ahead of the start of U.N.-sponsored climate talks in Bonn, Germany, on
Wednesday. The steps being taken by the world’s top two polluters are important
announcements that signal positive steps in addressing the planet’s changing
climate, Christiana Figueres, the U.N.’s top climate official, told USA TODAY
on Tuesday.
“China” has said no such thing. Just He
Jiankun. Who is not a government official. He later clarified:
“It’s not the case
that the Chinese government has made any decision. This is a suggestion
from experts, because now they are exploring how emissions can be controlled in
the 13th Five Year Plan…. This is a view of experts; that’s not saying it’s the
government’s. I’m not a government official and I don’t represent the government.”
Reuters has run a really weak correction. Another example
of some really fine, objective journalism. Kudos to New York Times
science writer Andrew Revkin (a straight shooter for the most part) for getting
it right:
BEIJING — Having covered
China’s stance on global warming since 1988, I’ve gotten attuned to the need to
tread carefully when something is said that feels like a shift in the official
position of this greenhouse gas giant. . .
As the Wall Street Journal notes this morning:
Many progressives admire
China’s political system because democratic consent is not an obstacle to
statist planning, like it is supposed to be in America, and that more even than
credulousness may explain why they’d fall for the idea that the People’s
Republic is a green paragon. A visit to Langfang or Guangzhou might disabuse
that notion. If China is a solider in the war on carbon, coal is winning.
The reality is that for
years the world’s worst polluter has been promising to taper back emissions in order to string along
the Western climatenauts, only to treat such pledges as discretionary. EPA
Administrator Gina McCarthy could become the General Secretary of the Communist
Party, and the governors of the provinces would continue to break her
regulations to prioritize economic growth and jobs.
But get ready for the Climatistas to roll out a new cliché to go
along with the “97 percent” canard: Even China is now
going to go along with our madness. Not.
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