This year’s United Nations Climate Week was more revelatory than the usual. Beyond its prosaic handwringing about supposed planetary doom, four distinct disclosures related to China should cause concern.
First, China finally dropped its “net zero” pose. The world’s largest emitter had promised to reach net zero by 2060. But its climate envoy now says that “completely phasing out fossil fuel is unrealistic” because “fossil fuels are essential to maintain grid stability and energy security given the sometimes unreliable nature of renewables.”
This makes sense. China’s primary goal is to become the lone global superpower by 2049. China is smart enough to realize that goal cannot be accomplished if it cripples itself, weakening its electricity grid with unreliable wind and solar power while simultaneously burdening it with massive numbers of of electric vehicles and heat pumps.
The Biden administration, on the other hand, is determined to cripple the U.S. It is engaged in simultaneous EPA rulemakings to zero out coal and gas plants, and to mandate the adoption of electric vehicles, even if the grid will not be able to sustain so many of them.
The Biden administration is also working on making gas stoves disappear, while Democrat-run states such as California and New York are also working on making gas furnaces and water heaters disappear.
Meanwhile, we learned from the Biden Department of Energy that Chinese coal plant emissions might not be so “disastrous” after all. The Argonne National Laboratory, which had its origins in the Manhattan Project and played a key role in the development of the Navy’s nuclear fleet and commercial nuclear power, is now developing computer models that excuse Chinese coal plant emissions.
Argonne claims that if electric vehicles in China are driven more than 178,000 miles, they will begin to offset emissions from coal power plants. But China has as much coal power now just in some phase of planning or construction as what the U.S. now has in its entirety.
Reuters called this a “weird climate logic.” That puts it mildly.
We also learned from the UN event that the Biden administration has given up hope of trying to be independent of China with respect to electric vehicles and solar panels. A top Biden administration official told Bloomberg News that we “won’t be able to cut China out of the critical minerals supply chain”, even as Washington seeks to diversify its sources of the ingredients that go into everything from electric vehicle” for electric vehicle batteries and solar panels.
“We are perfectly happy to work with them on this and right now we purchase many of the minerals from Chinese companies,” said Jose Fernandez, the U.S. undersecretary for economic growth and the environment.
What responsible government shrugs its shoulders at being economically reliant on its geopolitical rival? And how pathetic is it that, even if somehow war does not disrupt U.S. access to Chinese “clean energy” materials, they will all be mined and shipped with energy derived from dirty Chinese coal?
In spite of all the above, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told the New York Times editorial board, “We’re retaking control of our energy security and our energy future.”
Biden climate envoy John Kerry admitted in 2021 that even if the U.S. and China went to zero emissions tomorrow, “we’d still have a [climate problem].” The only difference between then and now is that they have stopped admitting the obvious.
So even if you believe that emissions are going to end the world in a few years, the Chinese clearly don’t, and they don’t plan to do anything about it. So what’s the point? And why is Biden so intent on crashing our economy and national security in the name of climate shibboleths?
Steve Milloy is a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.