American white water lily and its reflection

Nymphaea odorata at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on September 8th.

 

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An unspoken truth of the climate-change crusade is this: Anything the U.S. does to reduce emissions won’t matter much to global temperatures. U.S. cuts will be swamped by the increases in India, Africa and especially China. Look no further than China’s boom in new coal-fired electricity.

Under the nonbinding 2015 Paris climate agreement, China can increase its emissions until 2030. And is it ever. Between 2015 and 2021 China’s emissions increased by some 11%, according to the Climate Action Tracker, which evaluates nationally determined contributions under the Paris agreement. The U.S. has reduced its emissions by some 6% between 2015 and 2021. Beijing made minimal new commitments at last year’s Glasgow confab on climate, despite world pressure.

That’s the beginning of a September 12th Wall Street Journal editorial whose subhead is “Beijing is building more coal-fired capacity than the rest of the world combined, U.S. climate lectures notwithstanding.” Did you catch the third word in the second quoted paragraph? “Nonbinding” means that no matter what the leaders of a country say they will do, they don’t actually have to do it. And I have news for you: many people promise to do things they have no intention of doing. Later in the editorial we find this:

The reason for China’s coal boom is obvious: The Communist Party’s priority is economic growth, higher living standards, and becoming the world’s leading power. Carbon emissions are an afterthought, and promises of future reductions are the compliment Chinese vice pays to Western virtue signalers.

And here’s the last paragraph:

While the Biden Administration does all it can to restrict U.S. fossil fuels, no matter the economic harm, Beijing is charging ahead with coal imports, coal mining and coal power to become the world’s leading economy. They must marvel at their good fortune in having rivals who are so self-destructive.

 You’re welcome to read the full Wall Street Journal editorial.

 

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman