On the eve of the Paris summit, we learn that China has been fudging its carbon emission data for years. That this is a surprise to anyone shows how blind climate change advocates are to reality these days.
China apparently has been burning 17% more coal annually than it has claimed over the past 15 years. And as a result, it’s been emitting a billion tons more CO2 a year than it had admitted. The New York Times points out that this difference alone is equal to what Germany’s entire economy produces each year from burning fossil fuels.
In other words, if Germany shut down its entire economy, it wouldn’t compensate for China’s “error.”
Anyone who’s ever seen photos like the one above of Chinese cities choked in smog could have guessed that they are probably not pursuing “clean energy” at the pace they claim. But the fact that this vast undercount went on so long only points to a much larger problem with the entire climate change agenda.
Even if you believe in the dire warnings of climate scientists, and even if countries like China don’t cheat, nothing agreed to at the Paris summit next month will change anything. The summit is eagerly awaited by environmentalists because more than 150 countries are supposed to sign pledges to cut carbon emissions.
Problem is, the pledges made would still result in a global temperature increase of 6.3 degrees, or nearly twice what climate scientists say would be cataclysmic, according to Climate Interactive, the source of carbon data used by the U.S. and other countries.
Indeed, the inconvenient fact that no one pushing for CO2 reductions will admit publicly is that the only way to prevent “disastrous warming” is for the entire world to go entirely carbon-free in just six decades, and then start removing CO2 from the atmosphere after that — with technology that doesn’t yet exist.
The reason is that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries. So simply reducing emissions, or holding them steady, won’t do, because it will still lead to an increase in CO2 levels. That’s science, folks.
But does anyone in their right mind believe that eliminating fossil fuels entirely in a generation is even a remote possibility?
The idea that no one would cheat on any carbon reduction pledge is even more unrealistic. If China can hide carbon emissions equal to all of Germany’s for more than a decade, why should anyone trust it, or any other country for that matter, to be honest about its future emissions?
Keep in mind too that China has only agreed to “stabilize” its CO2 emissions starting in 2030, which means they will be free to do whatever they want for the next 15 years, while the U.S. and other industrialized nation’s strangle their own economies in the name of “saving the planet.”
Also, about a quarter of the emissions reductions being pledged are, as Reuters put it, “conditional on receiving financial and technical support to make them happen.”
In other words, a lot of the pledges are being made by developing countries hoping to get a piece of the $100 billion climate change fund that Obama & Co. want to create. Anyone want to guess how much of that money will end up financing graft and corruption instead of clean energy?
Then there’s the argument that doing anything is better than doing nothing. But there’s a problem with this line of reasoning too.
Put simply, either the climate scientists are right and there’s nothing that we can realistically do to prevent what they claim will be catastrophic global warming, or they are wrong and there’s no reason to waste money on cutting emissions. Either way, the right course would be to wait and see what happens and spend the money as needed down the road to adapt.
Climate change advocates castigate skeptics as “deniers.” But those denying reality are pushing the U.S. and other countries to adopt costly and pointless climate change policies.
