Just over a month ago, RWB noted some recent cold-weather-chaos occurring in China, and, with an eye on the then-upcoming Global Warming Summit in Copenhagen, posed this question:

How likely is it, really, that the shivering Chinese will be willing to pay the enormous economic price of slashing their own carbon dioxide emissions, with their developing economy, in the name of allaying the fear of the idle and decadent western elites that the world is getting too hot?

This was not based on my decades of intense sociological study of the mysterious far east, but rather on more of a gut perception as to how hard-nosed is the communist Chinese leadership. I think they’ve only been entertaining discussion on these issues of “climate change” in the interests of being courteous and being seen as cooperative players on the international scene, but they are fundamentally bemused by it all and probably understand that it originates with people in the West who have way too much time on their hands and can find nothing better to do with it other than to concoct self-loathing theories about the destruction of the earth. The Chinese regime — which may not be communist in the strictest sense anymore, but is certainly totalitarian — is trying to drag much of its population of 1.4 billion people out of conditions of 19th century poverty. It has been having some considerable success at that for the last couple of decades, but what it certainly does not need to do at this point is to apply massive brakes on all economic activity by means of carbon taxes and caps. A similar situation pertains with regard to other countries, notably India, but I figured that China would be the one above all that would ultimately brook no nonsense.

A report from a delegate (Mark Lynas) on the behind-closed-doors struggles at the Copenhagen talks shows how right RWB was, if I do say so myself: Eyewitness: How China sabotaged climate talks.

“The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful ‘deal’ so Western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.

He says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other Western leaders were visibly upset when China started “removing all the numbers that mattered” in the final talks, including emissions cuts by developed countries of 80 per cent by 2050.

“‘Why can’t we even mention our own targets?’ demanded a furious [German Premier] Angela Merkel.

“Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut?

“The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.

“But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again.”

Lynas says the 2020 peaking year was then “replaced by woolly language” and the global 50 per cent cuts by 2050 were also removed.

[...]

“China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait,” he said.

[...]

“The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself,” he said.

“The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his ’superiors’.”

So, proof that even communists can be right about something once in a while. It’s a wonderful world.

Of-course, we haven’t been truly saved by this — we’ve just dodged one bullet in particular. The global campaign to make the world colder will go on. In the U.S., the EPA is now empowered to wreck the economy at will, having determined that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. (By the way, since the EPA is presumably staffed by creatures who exhale carbon dioxide, this means that the EPA itself is now a source of pollution. Would only that this irresolvable conflict could make their heads explode.)

Still, thanks to Wen Jinbao and the boys for sparing us at the international level at least. Here’s hoping they’re having a very merry Christmas.

...................
Share this!

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• Barack Obama becoming uncool, while out in the cold (an Age of Light update)
• Rays of hope
• We’re all polluters now