“UK hoping to work with China to counteract Trump’s climate-hostile policies”, writes Fiona Harvey in the Guardian.
The UK is hoping to shape a new global axis in favour of climate action along with China and a host of developing countries, to offset the impact of Donald Trump’s abandonment of green policies and his sharp veer towards climate-hostile countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.
A “new global axis” with the People’s Republic of China. Who could possibly object to that?
The article continues,
Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy and net zero secretary, arrived in Beijing on Friday for three days of talks with top Chinese officials, including discussions on green technology supply chains, coal and the critical minerals needed for clean energy. The UK’s green economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy, but access to components and materials will be crucial for that to continue.
What they mean by this is that the number of people paid to make government regulations, interpret government regulations, comply with government regulations, check that others are complying with government regulations, and punish those who do not comply with government regulations is increasing three times faster than the rest of the economy, which for some mysterious reason is growing more slowly than expected at the moment.
There is considerable symmetry in the idea.
We do away with our fossil fuel plants, they build more of theirs.
We reduce our carbon emissions, they increase theirs.
They make stuff, we buy it.
“It’s a bold move Cotton, let’s see if it pays off.”
Labour is absolutely committed to this, isn’t it? I think the only thing which will force an about turn on it is when the economy has been so badly damaged, it’s forced, horror of horrors, to cut benefits.
John,
You got there before me!
Of course we can have net-zero for the UK if all our stuff is made in China and then chucked in Pakistan. Of course we can if we pretend this Global Issue can be off-shored. It is insanity. Well from our PoV. Not so much from China’s.
Milliband is a thick as pigshit, infantilised, narcissistic failed student politician who’s never had a proper job in his life. Like a lot of the “left elite” – the political lack of class (and just about everything else) – he is where he is in the labour party because of daddy (a multimillionaire “marxist intellectual”).
Just go to wikipedia and look at the official photo. Makes my passport photo look like the Mona Lisa!
I doubt if this intergalactic arsehead from hell could hold talks on pokemon cards for three minutes, let alone any vaguely real issue for three days.
What could possibly go wrong?
Mark,
You’re right. He also shafted his brother. It could almost be a tragedy if it wasn’t a farce. Alas we’re gonna have to put up with the farce until, “Ed’s dead baby, Ed’s dead!” (by which, obviously, I mean his carbon is sequestrated).
NickM “…his carbon is sequestered.” SQoTD? At least Phrase of the Day!
GREGWA,
Thanks!
China as partner in the climate wars?
I would not have thought of that.
But then, John Dillinger would have been a good bank-security consultant.
So there is SOME logic there.
😉
Somehow I don’t think they’ll be talking about all the coal plants china is building.
The People’s Republic of China is, by far, the largest producer off C02 – and it is also increasing (increasing) its C02 emissions.
So British government “hopes” are irrational – if indeed they really have these hopes (unlikely – see later on).
If they were serious about reducing world C02 emissions they, the British government, would end imports from the People’s Republic of China and would have people make goods locally (which would save transport C02 emissions) – but I very much doubt that reducing world C02 emissions is the real objective of British government policy, or the policy of the rest of the international establishment.
The objective appears to have been, right from the Rio Conference of 1992 (if not long before – perhaps from the “Club of Rome” in the 1960s), seems to have been to deindustrialise Western nations in order to make the world “less unfair” by making people in Western nations, such as the United Kingdom, poorer.
“Social Justice” is, after all, a global doctrine – and according to this doctrine people in historically wealthier countries are better off because of historic “exploitation and oppression” and must be punished – and if “Green” disguse is needed for such “Social Justice” (as in “Climate Justice” or “Racial Justice”) so-be-it has far as the international elite are concerned.
Of course, the international elite themselves do not intend to get poorer, to have harsher lives, they only intend this for ordinary Western people.
Such is the will of the “international community” or “rules based international order” – both governmental and partner corporations.
I always marvel at the conceit of calling your own system a “rules-based” one in order to distinguish it from others’.
My system is based on rules, too.
But my rules are better, and more life-affirming.
This just makes clear that the soi disant “green” movement is really just a WATERMELON. A vanishingly thin veneer of environmentalism coving a thick, juicy interior of Marxist collectivism.
As noted above by Paul Marks, China is the worlds single biggest contributor of CO2, and also the world largest yearly increaser of its output. It makes perfect sense to “share a new global axis…for climate action” with them, because the CCP will simply require that OTHER countries sacrifice their economies on the altar of climate change.
The gods are on the side of the angels! If ‘whom the gods would destroy they first make mad’ is correct, then loopy Ed M is in deep doodoo.
Blackwing1 – yes, and the British government (and some other Western governments) are insane enough to go along with the plans of the Communist Party Dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China – thinking they are manipulating the PRC whilst, in reality, being manipulated by it.
bobby b – quite so. The international establishment treat dissenters as outlaws – people-outside-the-law (THEIR law) and believe we should be utterly crushed, yet they are surprised that we do not them regard as moral (as a moral example to be followed) – but rather as the reverse.
“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.” – Arnold Toynbee.
See also that cheery old bastard, John Adams (1814): “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
Ed Milliband did not shaft his brother; he stood against him in an election and beat him.
The fact that David Miliband was the heir apparent, the pre-race favourite and approved by the Labour-leaning chatterati does not matter. The fact that he was expected to win does not mean he was entitled to win.
Working with China to mitigate “Climate Hostile Policies” is like working with the Third Reich to mitigate “Jewish Hostile Policies”.
There is also part of me says “Do it!” if only for the high comedy when China inevitably makes a move on Taiwan in 2027 and the Labour still being in power.
So what would this be called? Axis of Evil 2?