Bloomberg Green is surprised and dismayed that China is scaling back its climate ambitions. “China, the world’s top polluter, set a cautious new five-year climate target, frustrating hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to reach peak carbon emissions well before President Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline.” Uh, whose “hopes”? OK, Bloomberg’s, but no one who lives in the real world. China was just pretending all along, to encourage Western nations to undermine their economies, and with them the military power that stood in the way of China becoming the world hegemon by, of all dates, 2050. Unfortunately as Western climate activists discovered that promises of a “green energy transition” easy to make 25 years ago were impossible to keep as time went by, so Chinese dezinformatsiya specialists found that promises of meaningful plans to do likewise soon were as well. Pro tip: Don’t believe propaganda from tyrannies. Shouldn’t be necessary to say but evidently is.
This news, which emerged from the once-a-year gathering of China’s alleged legislature, the National People’s Congress, which has never once since 1949 rejected a suggestion from the Communist Party of China, makes it awkward timing that on March 4 the Canadian mercantilist government, not having caught up with Adam Smith and still believing trade is something nations do, not individuals and firms, boasted that “Canada secures renewed market access with China to boost exports and strengthen economic collaboration”. Worse, that press release led off with:
“As Canada forges a new path forward in its engagement with China, the world’s second-largest economy, it is focused on expanding commercial relations and cooperation, particularly in the areas of energy, clean technology, and climate competitiveness.”
Climate competitiveness? It’s not even a thing. And if it were, China wouldn’t be exhibiting it. Think the “National People’s Congress” is going to pass legislation restricting firms’ ability to pollute and thereby hamper the CCP’s drive for world domination, including the ugly mineral extraction to power its EV takeover?
No, China has other priorities, especially now that it just set its lowest economic growth target in over a third of a century. (Not that it hampered CCP propaganda, which said of this admission of weakness “The government work report submitted Thursday to the National People's Congress (NPC) has set the 2026 growth target at 4.5-5 percent, signaling steady confidence in China's development trajectory.”)
Still, communism springs eternal: Heatmap insists that “China’s Emissions Stay Flat, Extending Climate Winning Streak” due to wind, solar, nuclear and EVs. If you believe official statistics. And think their economy is solid not rickety. And that not reducing emissions means reducing them.
Oh, and speaking of climate zealots and China and EVs, Scientific Boosterism emails us:
“Electric vehicles using a sodium-ion battery, an emerging technology, could experience less power loss in below-freezing temperatures.”
Yeah. Unless they don’t. As the linked article says, much of it reading surprisingly like a press release from a Chinese company:
“CATL says its sodium-ion pack can keep charging and delivering power far below freezing. The real test is whether those lab numbers survive real winter driving”.
And in the true spirit of inquiry, SA didn’t test them. But it does strike us that, if it turns out to be true that the east is red and sodium-ion, all those North American politicians hurling billions of tax dollars into lithium-ion batteries because they possess clairvoyance about the economic future denied mere mortals, and consider no price too high for a good photo op when it’s someone else’s money, should be red-faced at looking like hucksters who themselves got scammed.
Which would be politically awkward… or at least so we hope. Because if voters are totally blasé about politicians wrecking the economy while siding with lying tyrants, it doesn’t bode well for the future of the free societies.
