China, which Michael Bloomberg weirdly insists is not a dictatorship because of its enlightened environmental policy, claims it met its 2020 climate goals early. Its emissions per unit of GDP are down 4% since 2018, and 45.8% from 2005. So never mind that its emissions have tripled since 2000, or that it passed the US as the world’s largest emitter in 2005. Like Stalin’s famines and other mass killings, China’s environmental crimes are not to be mentioned in polite society.

As we noted last week, totalitarian analogies should be used sparingly in public debate. But to compare Communist China to the Communist Soviet Union is not a stretch because of the “both Communist” thing and the hideous record of atrocities, lies and mind-bending propaganda. Including of course mendacity about targets.

BTW the first Soviet Five-Year Plan really did have the slogan “2+2=5”. What better time to recall it than now?

In reporting China’s claims, and sins, the New York Post also mentions that it is “the leading market for solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles and the biggest manufacturer of solar cells.” Yes, and Stalin’s Soviet Union made a lot of steel, though not as much as it claimed nor of as high quality. So it wouldn’t do to look too carefully at the conditions under which China’s planet-saving alternative energy components are made, either labour or environmental standards.

Or their numbers. Or anything.