China is still massively hooked on coal.
Roger Harrabin has been reporting the ‘excuses’ for China’s use of coal and telling us how wonderful the Chinese are at tackling environmental issues for a long time.
There are always two threads he likes to emphasise….firstly that China must continue to develop economically, it’s only fair, and that the West is responsible for China’s emissions as they buy Chinese products.
Harrabin never questions those ‘orthodoxies’.
Despite being told the Planet is about to burn unless we immediately reduce all carbon emissions China et al can continue to pump out massive quantities of the stuff…so kind of gives the lie to how urgent the environmental issue is….so is it all just ‘political’…a leftwing conspiracy to close down Western industry?
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the
United States. De-development means bringing our
economic system into line with the realities of
ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies
Here is a Harrabin report from 2011….
It is virtually impossible for the world to keep within the CO2 limits defined as safe for the climate, according to the chief economist of the International Energy Agency think tank.
Dr Fatih Birol told an audience in London that key nations were not prepared to take the steps necessary to cut carbon growth.
Dr Birol said the unsayable – that peaking emissions by 2020 was virtually impossible, and that in those circumstances we could “kiss goodbye” to the 2C target.
“We would need to double decarbonisation efforts, then double them again to keep emissions (of CO2 and equivalent gases) within 450 parts per million,” he said. “The bulk of the effort needs to take place in countries where climate change is not high on the policy agenda. We have to be realistic.”
Dr Birol referred to the debate in Europe as to whether the EU would cut emissions by 20% or 30% by 2020 against 1990 levels. The difference between these two targets, he said, was equivalent to just two weeks of China’s emissions.
He said the West could not blame China because per capita emissions and car ownership there were still comparatively very low and he urged the UK and EU continue with “climate leadership”.
Did you note that sentence?
“The bulk of the effort needs to take place in countries where climate change is not high on the policy agenda. We have to be realistic.”
In other words countries like China must make the most effort to reduce emissions.
Still, can’t blame China.
and one from 2007
He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions.
Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC.
There is a moral case. Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been put there by developed countries without the constraint of having to worry about the climate. That means we should bear the leading edge of responsibility.
Rivers of Gold
So the ‘West’ has to pay twice….we’re already pumping massive amounts of money into China’s economy..in infrastructure and manufacturing investment and then by buying the products yet more goes in…and now we’re also supposed to provide compensation for making China rich?
But what does China do with all that money?
‘Provincial governments and state-owned enterprises often see more political and financial advantage in diverting the river of investment money flowing into China towards polluting heavy industries.’
Here from 2009 we see that China thinks its emissions will peak, that’s right peak, between 20 and 30 years from now….
‘a modelling exercise published recently by three respected organisations – the Energy Research Institute (ERI), Qinghua University, and the State Council Development Research Centre – concludes that emissions could peak between 2030 and 2040.’
Harrabin of course can’t lavish enough praise on the Chinese and thinks they are the saviours of the planet……
‘It is almost impossible to tell industrial policy and environment policy apart.’
The blog ‘Not a lot of people know that’ tells a different tale where China is combating pollution in the cities…by moving it out into the countryside:
A Look at China’s Current and Proposed Coal Use
With its rapid economic development in recent years, China has been expanding coal power generation capacity at an astonishing speed for the past decade (see graph below). It is worth noting that this period of rapid expansion followed a period of relatively slow growth in new coal-fired capacity. The action plan marks the first time the Chinese government has introduced a ban on new coal-fired plants.
However most of China’s coal development is moving westwards to less developed regions. The graphs below show that current coal consumption is strong in northern provinces (left), and the geographic distribution of proposed coal power projects (right) indicates a further growth of coal consumption in the northwestern provinces. Most of these regions are not covered by the action plan, and more than 80 percent of the proposed projects in the 2012 pipeline are currently exempt from the ban and special standards.
So China is still building coal fired power stations at the rate of one a week…and emissions will continue to rise until maybe 2040.
Yep……no problem there then if you believe in CO2 powered Global Warming, Climate Change or is it Global Weirding?
And by the by this gives the lie to just how much politicians and the great and the good really care about energy prices…..from last year……
Cheap coal ‘threatens UK pollution targets’
Coal on the global market is so cheap that it threatens government attempts to tackle climate change, the chairman of the Environment Agency has warned.
Lord Smith says the UK’s share of electricity generated by coal is up to 40% – the highest since 1996.
Unless this trend is curbed, he says, the UK will miss its targets on curbing climate change and sulphur pollution.
The price of coal has been driven down by the dash for shale gas in the US.
Lord Smith told the BBC: “There’s lots of talk about a dash for gas but in effect we’re in a dash for coal that’s completely unsustainable.
The government must ensure it doesn’t continue.”
Yes…can’t have cheap energy can we? Instead we must meet some emissions targets driven by scientists who have allowed themselves to be trapped in their own hubris and desire for the massive research grants to continue and by a political set that are also caught in their rhetoric on the subject and in many cases by a desire to use climate change as a vehicle for change socially, industrially and politically.
If we can’t control the BRICs (shortly to be followed, apparently by the MINT, and no doubt latterly by HUMBUG or some other acronym) then can anyone tell me how many weeks the apocalypse will be delayed by us meeting OUR targets while bankrupting ourselves?
Depends what the target is, and by whom it is set.
If it is as a direct, or indirect result of UN Agenda 21, the target is bound to be of a eugenic variety, when thousands of elderly people are required to succumb from the cold in order to put a brake on the population. Preventing immigrants from breeding, however, has yet to be examined as a possible solution.
Fortunately, the Beast from the East has yet to arrive in the Former UK this winter, so fatalities will be a l little lower than predicted by the UN, who will no doubt think of some other way to achieve their target…
I’ve always pointed that out when asked about global warming AKA climate change. If its so dire that we in the UK have to cut our emissions, pay taxes reduce travel etc. Then surely we cannot ignore China or India. The response is ‘we cannot dictate to others as it smacks of imperialism. Well forgive me, but surely some hurt feelings and feelings of indignation is much better than the end of the world. But apparently not to those on the left, who are forever making the west and UK in particular apologise for once being the greatest power on the planet.
But hasn’t this always been about China? They want to join the modern world and need access to major resources to do so.
They need rare earth metals so they quietly invade Africa and now indirectly control a large number of African states.
They need oil so they ferment trouble in the Middle East – the Iran-Iraq war was a Soviet-China proxy war – funny how they keep blocking actions against the mad mullahs isn’t it?
They need fossil fuels so they get their useful idiots in the West to persuade people they shouldn’t be using them all – but it’s OK for China to.
Who did Gordon Brown sell all our gold to at rock bottom prices?
Oh, and who was it that tripped up Goldman Sachs in the Far East and triggered the banking crisis?
Why it was China.
What more proof is required?
I love the way BBC and liberal/ left think the white man is so superior that other races will follow our lead on moral issues .
Thus yellow man in China will reduce his emissions not because he came to that conclusion himself , but because he is in such awe of the moral high ground of. ” Europe ” .
Crypto-Racism at its finest, its amazing how much the BBC holds non-white people to a lower standard of behavior. They also seem to believe that ‘minorities’ possess very little in the way of intellectual independence and will inevitably have to follow their own moral and intellectual lead.
I’d say the neo-Malthusian Dr. Birol actually meant that rich Western countries need to lead the way on making the effort, not China. Harrabin and his fellow travelers realize that China isn’t going to stop being the world’s biggest polluter any time soon. So the rest of us have to reduce ourselves to pre-industrial levels of consumption. Not Harrabin and Co., of course. They still get to live the elite lifestyle, jetting around the world to conferences at luxury resorts.
Here’s something the bBC don’t mention about the wonderful Chinese:
China’s ‘airpocalypse’ kills 350,000 to 500,000 each year
The equivalent of the population of Bristol dies each year in China because of lethal air pollution, according to Chen Zhu, who was the country’s Health minister until last year.
Mr Chen, who is also a professor of medicine and a leading molecular biologist, is the most senior government official to put a human cost on the smog that regularly clouds Chinese skies. Until recently, any mention of deaths relating to pollution was strictly censored.
I wonder if the b in bBC stands for Beijing