Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The righteousness game

'China will increase efforts to improve energy efficiency and curb the rise in CO2 emissions, President Hu Jintao has told a UN climate summit in New York.

Mr Hu gave no details about the measures, which should mean emissions grow less quickly than the economy.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8268077.stm

The Chinese have sussed this game. Like all the bullshit signatories of Kyoto, they have no real intention of cutting their actual CO2 emissions. They don't need to. They will get a huge blaze of positive publicity from the overexcited puppies of the world media anyway. For the latter, saying something is just as good, if not better, than doing something. You just have to show you care. That you are a paid-up believer.

They know that none of the puppies can be bothered to do all that dreary after-the-fact checking to see whether there are more or fewer coal-fired power stations, whether scrubbers get fitted to the ones that have already been built, whether CO2 rules are kept to when building new factories etc. In China, where a bribe takes care of just about any business that needs transacting, even if the documents say that CO2-limiting technologies are in place, you would probably be well served to go take a look with your own eyes.

I could be wrong about this, but I don't think I am.

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