It really is a theme with the greentopians: Barack Obama said in 2008 that anyone who built a coal plant under his cap-and-trade plan would go bankrupt. Saule Omarova, Joe Biden’s Comptroller of the Currency nominee, stated in February that she wants to “bankrupt” the energy industry’s “small players.” Now White House “Climate Envoy” and ex-presidential candidate John Kerry has vowed to destroy tens of thousands of jobs. Specifically, while speaking this week at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Kerry said, “By 2030 in the United States, we will not have coal plants.”
Well, that’s interesting because our main geopolitical adversary, China, sure will.
In fact, it’ll have more than today.
For that matter, so will the world’s second most populous nation, India.
Kerry followed his comment with another vow. “By 2035, President Biden has set a target that we will be, in our power sector, carbon free,” he proclaimed.
Of course, by “carbon” Kerry means carbon dioxide. Never mind that calling CO2 “carbon” is like calling H2O “hydrogen.” It’s propaganda.
The only good news about Kerry’s statement and the COP26 was delivered by climate kid Greta Thunberg, who also appeared at the event. To wit: The summit was “business as usual,” the teen cynically observed — and those attending were just trying to “create loopholes to benefit themselves,” Breitbart related her as saying.
Some may note that this could be one of the first true statements the girl has made — and that we should be thankful the summit attendees were as phony as Thunberg is deluded. Then again, many phony people are also deluded (a function of being phony with oneself, a.k.a. “rationalization”) and can indulge fantasies.
Speaking of which, the West can pursue green-energy-induced economic decline, but China — which aims to supplant the U.S. as the world’s dominant power — won’t follow us into that abyss. Oh, Beijing did pledge in September to the United Nations to cease building coal-fired power plants overseas. But this could just be another example of China’s president Xi Jinping throwing the West a bone to ensure we continue on our destructive greentopian path. After all, laugh off the global warming agenda and not only may Westerners reduce their China-pandering emissions (see NBA and Biden clan et al.), but they’ll also be more likely to tamp down their suicidal, green-energy endeavors.
Rhetoric vs. Reality
Anyone cynical about this China-cynicism should read the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) piece “Despite Pledges to Cut Emissions, China Goes on a Coal Spree” (March, 2021). It informs:
Coal remains at the heart of China’s flourishing economy. In 2019, 58 percent of the country’s total energy consumption came from coal, which helps explain why China accounts for 28 percent of all global CO2 emissions. And China continues to build coal-fired power plants at a rate that outpaces the rest of the world combined. In 2020, China brought 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power into operation, more than three times what was brought on line everywhere else.
A total of 247 gigawatts of coal power is now in planning or development, nearly six times Germany’s entire coal-fired capacity. China has also proposed additional new coal plants that, if built, would generate 73.5 gigawatts of power, more than five times the 13.9 gigawatts proposed in the rest of the world combined. Last year, Chinese provinces granted construction approval to 47 gigawatts of coal power projects, more than three times the capacity permitted in 2019.
Oh, but don’t worry: Xi’s September seductions included a promise “to reach carbon neutrality by 2060,” YSE also writes (the proper response to which is, “And ‘carbon neutrality’ means what in your culture?”).
Now, question: If you were told there was a company you should invest in that currently exists just in theory, but that will be profitable in 2060, would you bite? Or would you suspect it was some kind of scam?
Then there’s India, which “may build new coal-fired power plants as they generate the cheapest power,” Reuters informed in April. But writing “may” may be generous. Reporting on a giant Udangudi plant in India that will operate “for at least 30 years to generate power for the more than 70 million people,” the Japan Times also tells us that it “is one of nearly 200 coal-fired power stations under construction in Asia, including 95 in China, 28 in India and 23 in Indonesia.”
This won’t stop anytime soon, either, for a simple reason: “Wind and solar energy are both essentially obsolete technologies,” wrote Powerline in April. This is for many reasons. But the main one is that these technologies are low-intensity energy sources; meaning, they don’t produce very much wattage per square meter (chart below). Thus would it require, for example, a region three times California’s size to meet the U.S.’s current energy needs with wind power, according to this analysis.
In fact, it takes tremendous energy just to meet the needs of pseudo-elitist John Kerry (video of his COP26 statement below), who, Gateway Pundit reminds us, “owns a mega yacht, travels on private jets and owns several mansions.”
As for China’s energy deeds, global-warming alarmists may say we shouldn’t be deterred from our “carbon-neutral” path by them, that it’s “better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” But if we listen to the greentopians, we may find ourselves impoverished, in Beijing’s chains, lighting candles and living in darkness.
