The climate-alarmist love notes to China just keep coming. And some feel uncomfortably like enabling an abuser. For instance the Bloomberg Green headline (under the ludicrous category “Green Climate Politics”) that “China Played It Safe With First Pledge to Cut Greenhouse Emissions”. One can hardly imagine such a spin if a Western nation had set modest goals. And then they assure us their beloved is really an angel despite appearances with “Other nations have achieved larger declines after reaching peak climate pollution — and the world’s biggest emitter has exceeded its own goals”. So really honestly they love us and the planet.
In a similar vein, David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times charges in under the banner “As China goes, so goes the climate”. And again, writers do not generate their own headlines. But they do write their own copy subject to vague editorial supervision, including:
“On Sunday it was Sun Day – a nationwide climate-activist event, timed to the beginning of New York’s Climate Week, meant to celebrate the fact that, however gloomy or defeated you may be feeling about the future of the planet, solar power, at least, is absolutely booming.”
In case you happened to miss Sun Day, New York’s Climate Week, or the solar boom. As you might have since the West is vile and only China pleases:
“Ten years since the landmark Paris Agreement seemed to promise a whole new era for climate politics, the rich world has mostly abandoned warming as a matter of political concern – and the spirit of global solidarity on which those climate goals were supposedly built. But renewables are storming forward anyway, thanks in large part to the spectacular rise of China as a green-industrial behemoth.”
Well, yes and no. As part of our commitment to fair play, in which last week we mentioned several instances of alarmist outlets admitting possible weaknesses in some of their own positions, we high-five Inside Climate News for proclaiming “The Steep Environmental Costs of China’s Massive Global Development”. Even if it is part of their “special Climate Week video series”.
Then we thumbs-down Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney who, again channeling the much-not-lamented Justin Trudeau, just told the Council on Foreign Relations (speaking of globalists who mistake trendy platitudes for wisdom) that:
“In my experience with China, they are, among other things, very sincere and engaged on climate. This is a country run by engineers. This is a country that understands a lot of the engineering solutions to issues around emissions.”
Moreover, Juno News observes, he said:
“there’s almost a standing offer from them about how to engage in the global commons in and around climate. Which a country like Canada – it is an energy superpower. We’re going to certainly build and fully exploit that.”
As Juno then points out, but Carney did not:
“According to the International Energy Agency, China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, primarily due to the country’s heavy reliance on coal combustion. In 2023, China accounted for nearly 31% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions – up 4.7% compared to 2022. Chinese authorities show no sign of slowing down when it comes to the construction of new coal power plants. In 2024, the country began building several new coal-powered facilities, expected to produce 94.5 gigawatts of electricity.”
Instead Carney is keen to trade with China, while dissing the United States. Not that we’re enablers or anything, you understand.
As for the New York Times and New York’s Climate Week, not so much. If you missed virtually every government giving up on climate, and thought it was just Donald Trump, you are not alone. Ask Mark Carney or Keir Starmer or Anthony Albanese and so forth. But Wallace-Wells sees hope in the red green zone:
“By any objective measure, the pace of the global transition remains woefully inadequate. But last year, renewables accounted for 93 percent of global power additions – and as of July, 74 percent of wind and solar projects worldwide were being built by China.”
And the useful idiots were experiencing bliss:
“The result has looked to many rooting for climate action like a kind of deliverance: If the rich world was failing to move fast enough, here came an upstart to take the reins. (To some on the climate left, this was probably ideologically gratifying, too — a kind of comeuppance for Western arrogance and indifference.)”
Of course when you’re a communist dictatorship, you get to make everyone do what you say not what makes economic sense. How grand. But while you can ignore the laws of economics, you cannot repeal them. Thus:
“it all offers some uncomfortable implications for those most concerned about climate change, too. A year ago, in a column contemplating the awesome scale of China’s green industrial revolution, I asked, ‘What happens if China stops trying to save the world?’”
Er, when did they start? Mr. Xi is our saviour? Sort of:
“Those eye-popping six-month installation totals from this year are in part a reflection of developers rushing to complete their projects before a certain subsidy expired. Installations have fallen off significantly from their May peak, and a long slowdown is now expected. Overall, investment spending is in free fall.”
Oh darn. Evidently the Chinese companies:
“were engaged in such ruthless price competition that (in producing more and more cheaper and cheaper solar panels, for instance) few of them were able to profit. In the United States, we’ve tended to refer to this phenomenon as overcapacity.”
But how can it be “overcapacity” when the world needs a massive multiple of the current rate of solar installations? After some weird guff about observers starting to admire Donald Trump’s economic approach as “state capitalism with American characteristics” he goes back to rhapsodizing:
“Again and again, Americans traveling to China come back awed and overwhelmed by the progress being made there – in solar power, battery technology and electric vehicles, especially – and how far behind that leaves anyone struggling to compete here. And while anecdotal despair is not geopolitical destiny, it’s also not exactly an encouraging sign about the state of great-power competition.”
It fizzles out with “perhaps we are moving from one stage of rivalry to another, with much of the future of the planet hanging in the balance.” Yeah. Time may tell. But we for our part fearlessly predict that even the most incoherent of mainstream American commentary will be full of unjustified praise for China and its alleged big green plans to conquer the world.
