Foundinchina.com

http://static.guim.co.uk/

Once again China is content to snipe away at ‘rich’ countries (and the US in particular) while abdicating her own responsibilities as she hides behind the convenient – and somewhat spurious – cloak of a ‘developing’ country. I’m prepared to bet that the Chinese delegation was behind Sudan’s criticism of developed nations a couple of days ago. Enlisting a dictatorial puppet in their machinations, or coercing minnows to throw a spanner in the works are well-worn China strategies.

Let’s be clear about what China has put on the table in Copenhagen. Beijing proposes not to cut emissions, but to continue increasing them at a slower rate, to 40 to 45 per cent (per unit of GDP) below 2005 levels by 2020. In other words China is proud to be both the biggest polluter and largest holder of foreign reserves on the planet, but would rather not share the tab for this particular – or any – undertaking that does not explicitly benefit China above all others. For the second time this year, China has dissed the Earth.

It’s all one big game of hardball scheming to China, where the object isn’t to come away with a climate deal, but rather to position itself as the champion of the poor (restrain your laughter, please) and tag the ill-defined ‘west’ as the bad guys who can’t be trusted to stick to their pledges.

For once in their shabby, narrow-minded, selfish, dictatorial lives why can’t the Chinese government treat a global conference as something other than a winner-takes-all game of risk?

Answers on a postcard to P.O. Box 666, Zhongnanhai.

Update

The Australian spells out the problem:

RICH nations, including the US and Australia, are demanding that China and other major developing-nation greenhouse gas emitters pledge clear reduction targets in an internationally binding agreement that allows the promises to be checked.

The US special envoy on climate change, Todd Stern, arrived in the Danish capital with a clear message: China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, had to take on a binding and verifiable commitment.

Mr Stern said the US accepted its responsibilities, but added “the country whose emissions is going up really rapidly is China”.

“You can’t even think about solving this problem without China,” he said. “You just have to do the math. There is no way to solve this problem by giving developing countries a pass.

“Virtually all of the growth in emissions going forward . . . will be coming from developing countries, of which about 50 per cent will come from China alone.”

And there you have it.

... except in China

...and here's why

Only the Chinese government could pull off something so grandiose. This is how they’re going to do it:

The Chinese government has been turned off this Saturday’s “Earth Hour” after officials realised the event falls on a newly created holiday to commemorate the ousting of the Dalai Lama from Tibet.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has urged people around the world to participate in Earth Hour, which he called the largest ever public show of concern about climate change.

Chinese journalists and student groups have been told to scale back their participation because images of cities and campuses turning dark do not fit the upbeat propaganda message that the authorities wanted to convey by declaring 28 March “Serf Liberation Day” in Tibet. 

Read more from the Guardian’s report here. Needless to say the comments quickly descended into a fenqing-fest that had nothing to do with saving the planet.

Anyway, congratulations to those CCP energy guzzlers; they care about Tibetans so much they’re even prepared to destroy the Earth in their honour. Wonderful people.

Hat tip to Richard to pointing me in the direction of the propaganda picture on the right (via this blog).