Matt Treacy ✒ While the western media – including even the red tops which are going large on boiling lava today – has temporarily replaced Covid scares with Climate Change, the Chinese official press is surely taking the pee out of us.

While our own Climate Change Commissar Eamon Ryan is calling on the world to follow the example being set by little old Ireland, the Chinese Communist Party, which presides over the biggest single one state source of CO2 emissions, is promising that it will get around to this someday. When its exemptions end, if they adhere to that.

As Gillian Welch might put it, they “wanna do right, but not right now.” They will, however, according to today’s People’s Daily reach peak pollution by 2030, and thereafter proceed to “achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” Now, according to our own Cassandras that would surely be too late?

Loveable old Comrade Xi Jinping was too busy washing his hair or opening a new labour camp or something to be able to turn up to save the planet and all yesterday, but he did text them. It contained the fortune cookie advice that “Visions will only come true when we act upon them.” If Woke Hollywood is ever going to do a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life, the Jimmy Stewart character part is sorted.

The Party has also let everyone know that is unselfishly prepared to share its experience and expertise in not meeting the goals expected of the “imperialist running dogs” of Walsh Island and Ferbane whose peat racket was threatening imminent global catastrophe, with the rest of the planet.

One of the ways it is doing this is by taking an increasing role in the economies of Africa. Much of the trillions of dollars being invested through the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is targeted at sub–Saharan Africa which is regularly cited as the greatest and most vulnerable victim of climate change. Indeed, it is the example most often used to tug at the heart strings of western consumers.

And with good reason, when one considers that much of western phone technology, for example, depends on raw material inputs like cobalt. It is these raw materials that are the apple of the Chinese industrial Behemoth’s fossil fuel guzzling eye – to the extent that some observers are highly sceptical about how Chinese involvement in Africa is going to help in attaining that continent’s modest energy targets.

Jennifer Turner of the Woodrow Wilson Center has said:

What China is selling is the China development model, which was energy-intense, so no holds barred … China’s not taking their war on pollution on the road even though that could be an opportunity.

China has also increased coal production, and announced as much in the midst of all this week’s brow-beating.

One of the reasons for this is that some observers see the increase in Chinese coal exports to their economic partners as a means to mitigate the impact of a slowdown in the Chinese domestic economy.

China increases coal production as climate warming talks begin bangkokpost.com

There are differing assessments of the health of the Chinese economy, but the announcement in recent days that Beijing is advising households to stock up on essential items over the Winter is pretty alarming. Some of China’s nervous neighbours, including India, are connecting this to growing fears that the recent aggression towards Taiwan might proceed further.

China urges people to stock up on essentials ahead of winter,
prompts worries online | 
Deccan Herald

It may also be a pre-emptive move ahead of an intensified lockdown over rising Covid cases, preparation for a severe spell of cold weather, or even just as part of a correction to steeply increased food prices.

Who knows. Winston Churchill’s reference to the Soviet Union as a “mystery wrapped in an enigma” goes nowhere near to capturing the paucity of real knowledge of Chinese realities and plans. Which most in the west pay no heed to anyway, unless it is comprised of sycophantic infantilisms that take no account of the utter cynicism of the regime they effect to condescend to.

Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of 
the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. 

China Sends Best Wishes To Climate Meet-Up

Matt Treacy ✒ While the western media – including even the red tops which are going large on boiling lava today – has temporarily replaced Covid scares with Climate Change, the Chinese official press is surely taking the pee out of us.

While our own Climate Change Commissar Eamon Ryan is calling on the world to follow the example being set by little old Ireland, the Chinese Communist Party, which presides over the biggest single one state source of CO2 emissions, is promising that it will get around to this someday. When its exemptions end, if they adhere to that.

As Gillian Welch might put it, they “wanna do right, but not right now.” They will, however, according to today’s People’s Daily reach peak pollution by 2030, and thereafter proceed to “achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” Now, according to our own Cassandras that would surely be too late?

Loveable old Comrade Xi Jinping was too busy washing his hair or opening a new labour camp or something to be able to turn up to save the planet and all yesterday, but he did text them. It contained the fortune cookie advice that “Visions will only come true when we act upon them.” If Woke Hollywood is ever going to do a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life, the Jimmy Stewart character part is sorted.

The Party has also let everyone know that is unselfishly prepared to share its experience and expertise in not meeting the goals expected of the “imperialist running dogs” of Walsh Island and Ferbane whose peat racket was threatening imminent global catastrophe, with the rest of the planet.

One of the ways it is doing this is by taking an increasing role in the economies of Africa. Much of the trillions of dollars being invested through the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is targeted at sub–Saharan Africa which is regularly cited as the greatest and most vulnerable victim of climate change. Indeed, it is the example most often used to tug at the heart strings of western consumers.

And with good reason, when one considers that much of western phone technology, for example, depends on raw material inputs like cobalt. It is these raw materials that are the apple of the Chinese industrial Behemoth’s fossil fuel guzzling eye – to the extent that some observers are highly sceptical about how Chinese involvement in Africa is going to help in attaining that continent’s modest energy targets.

Jennifer Turner of the Woodrow Wilson Center has said:

What China is selling is the China development model, which was energy-intense, so no holds barred … China’s not taking their war on pollution on the road even though that could be an opportunity.

China has also increased coal production, and announced as much in the midst of all this week’s brow-beating.

One of the reasons for this is that some observers see the increase in Chinese coal exports to their economic partners as a means to mitigate the impact of a slowdown in the Chinese domestic economy.

China increases coal production as climate warming talks begin bangkokpost.com

There are differing assessments of the health of the Chinese economy, but the announcement in recent days that Beijing is advising households to stock up on essential items over the Winter is pretty alarming. Some of China’s nervous neighbours, including India, are connecting this to growing fears that the recent aggression towards Taiwan might proceed further.

China urges people to stock up on essentials ahead of winter,
prompts worries online | 
Deccan Herald

It may also be a pre-emptive move ahead of an intensified lockdown over rising Covid cases, preparation for a severe spell of cold weather, or even just as part of a correction to steeply increased food prices.

Who knows. Winston Churchill’s reference to the Soviet Union as a “mystery wrapped in an enigma” goes nowhere near to capturing the paucity of real knowledge of Chinese realities and plans. Which most in the west pay no heed to anyway, unless it is comprised of sycophantic infantilisms that take no account of the utter cynicism of the regime they effect to condescend to.

Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of 
the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. 

1 comment:

  1. I've been saying this for a long time. The only other opine I would have is that China, like India, see's the industrial advancement of the West as being the key reason why the West is so desirable to emulate. But the West used fossil fuels with wanton abandon in this pursuit and it seems to both Dehli and Beijing that their progress is threatened by limiting their emissions. And given both nations tragic histories at the hands of the West we can hardly blame them.

    No nation really gives a shit about some islands sinking that don't belong to them. It'll only be when widespread food shortages due to increase in detrimental weather cycles on a global scale shove it in their faces will they do anything seriously about it.

    ReplyDelete