China is an interesting case. They really do seem to be interested in green energy, but I think it’s more strategic than it is concern for the environment.
Before I go any further, I have to note that up until about a month ago, I worked for the publisher of one of the biggest coal mining magazines in the US, so I have had to pay some attention to this over the last few years. The coal production and consumption side of things is just a matter of public record; my view on why those production numbers matter is a matter of my opinion.
First, the US has huge coal reserves. Bigger than any other region–and for a long time, the US was also the world’s biggest producer. We also used most of that coal that was produced and exported some, too. A few years back, China, which has far smaller reserves than the US, became the biggest producer in the world and yet still had to make deals to import coal for consumption. Keep in mind that coal use in China is dirtier and more dangerous than its US counterpart.
Okay, here’s why I think it matters. China is funding a giant, and so far successful, industrial jump. They are essentially trying to make up tons of lost development and economic production in an incredibly short time–but they know that the energy source that they are building that jump on won’t last them forever. Their coal consumption is a bridge to both a more modern economy and the next level of power generation and consumption.
It’s a brilliant strategy, too. Completely unlike the US, China has decided to use its own natural resources to increase wealth, security, and to buy mineral and mining rights in developing countries around the world. You could argue that they aren’t being the best stewards of their own resources, and that might be true, but I would urge you to look at the aggressive way that they are buying up coal rights around the world.
The US, on the other hand, is actively antagonistic to the use of its own resources, especially when that resource is coal.
China may or may not be arguing global warming/climate change/whatever on a political level. In a practical sense, though, it doesn’t matter because they are burning through coal (and, remember, according to the climate change view, “clean coal” is a myth–and in China there isn’t even the attempt to make it clean) and polluting at an incredible rate.
China could care less what we do about global warming; they have a plan, they’re sticking to it, and they’ll leave economic suicide to the idiots in the West.
