China accuses Australia as Bonn climate talks founder
May 26th, 2012 by Warwick HughesNews out of the Bonn climate talks sounds familiar –
“Beijing lashes Canberra as carbon talks stall”
then from the Guardian -
“Bonn climate talks end in discord and disappointment”
and USAToday asks -
“Is China poor? Key question at climate talks”
Amidst all the posturing rhetoric it might be useful to see some facts charted.
First the magnitude of Chinese carbon dioxide emissions compared to Australia
Australia could decarbonize back to the stoneage and the effect on Global emissions would not be measurable.
A chart of Chinese emissions compared to major global groupings.
A chart of Australian export income from coal –
larger version from source.
Posted in IPCC, Resources | 7 Comments »
May 26th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
The graphs are very telling. Also, if more aluminium, cement works & steel works close down in Australia some of our energy intensity will be moved to other countries such as Indonesia.
However, readers of this blog should be aware that what the Chinese say is not always clear and what they actually are saying.
In my experience if an inscrutable oriental says yes in reply to a question it could mean a) “yes” I hear you b) “yes” I do not understand c) “yes” I understand your view d) “yes” I will pass on your comment to “higher” authority e) “yes” I will reply some time f) “yes” I disagree but am too polite to say “no” and maybe some more. Everything. must be put into context. It takes many years to develop a good relationship (7 years is an oft quote time) and many decisions are made by mutual agreement and trust.
Has one thought that the Chinese leader is saying “We all know the the climate talk is about politics. When you come clean and admit that CO2 emission can not affect climate then we can better go about encouraging developing countries to raise their standard of living>”?
May 26th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
cementafriend;
I am sure you know that the Chinese have done their own studies on historical climate, and come to the obvious conclusion that things were better in China when the world was warmer. So they are not afraid of minor warming. As for the “IPCC’s positive feedback leading to runaway temperature rise” I think any intelligent 12 year old can see through that; and they have a lot of intelligent 12 year olds.
They would also like to pay back western countries for their domination of China for 150 years, without being too obvious about it and not attracting international odium.
The Kyoto scheme is tailor made for this. Firstly, the countries most in favour of extending it are all those (except Japan and Russia) who oppressed them in the last 2 centuries. Delaying the scheme will be revenge.
Secondly, by holding out for large sums of money for “under-developed” countries, they can pose as friends of those african (and other) countries with undeveloped resources.
Thirdly, they know the scheme won’t ever get off the ground anyway. The USA, Russia, Japan, India and Canada aren’t going to agree. Besides all those countries in Europe who are so keen on the scheme can’t afford the money to get it off the ground.
They can continue to boost their economy with cheap power while waiting for the cooling down of the climate to become so obvious that the whole idea is abandoned. (I note talk on WUWT about sea levels and whether recent rises are just the result of “adjustments”).
May 27th, 2012 at 8:01 am
Kyoto to a large extent subsidized the transfer of steel and cement industries from the developed world to China. A piece of economic madness that we will seriously regret if any kind of conflict with China eventuates.
China made very large amounts of money from the Kyoto protocol. From memory, about 60% of the internationally traded carbon credits, the money went to China and hardly any involved reducing CO2 emissions.
Rather the money went to developing energy intensive industries.
Kyoto was an abject failure, and entirely predictably so.
I remember writing at the time Kyoto was implemented.
“The Kyoto protocol isn’t a real solution, but don’t worry, because Global Warming isn’t a real problem.”
May 27th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
The graphs indeed show that emissions-producing industries must have been displaced to China and India, especially in the run-up to the Kyoto compliance period 2008-12.
No wonder those two countries refuse to accept limits. They would not have their present level of emissions in the first place if developed countries hadn’t pushed their own industries out with carbon taxes, overpriced energy, and other green schemes.
The two countries alone now emit more than the entire Western world – North America, Western Europe, and Australasia combined – you could even throw in Japan and Korea as well. Moreover on current trends their emissions will double by 2020, whereas the West’s will not increase at all. Emissions limits in the Western world are a sideshow, almost an irrelevance – in fact, they may actually be raising global emissions by delocalising production and so increasing the volume of air and sea freight.
Meanwhile the endless farce of “global climate negotiations” drags on. As if the climate could be negotiated in the first place! Yet we are conned into thinking so by an “iron triangle” of vested interests. The scientists come along to say there “could” be catastrophe (but they’ll need more funding to be sure), the politicians try to “address” the “problem” (by new taxes they get to spend), and the NGOs squeal that current action is totally inadequate (because if the problem goes away, so do their funders). Any scientists, politicians or NGOs who tell the truth – namely, that the problem is hypothetical – are rigorously excluded from this “debate”.
May 28th, 2012 at 8:09 am
A modern container vessel has 109 MW (146.171 hp) installed to operate it.
Denmark has more than 6000 wind turbines, equal to an year round hourly effect of 791 MW (in 2008, ref. Danish Energy Agency).
6 to 8 container vessels consume energy equal to the entire energy generated by the wind power industry in Denmark – The Danish shipping company Maersk-Line operates more than 550 container vessels of this kind.
So sending those ‘dirty industries’ to the East, and having those ships act as a conveyor belt to bring the goods back from the East, results in 50-60 times more CO2 than those wind turbines “save”.
Denmark’s total generation is roughly 37,000 GWh p.a. (4224 MW per hour to be the same units as above). The reductions in CO2 can be estimated at around 700MW, which is assumed to be due to wind and not the increase in the highly efficient gas fired CHP units that has occurred. That means that those Maersk vessels have to operate 4.5 days per year each to wipe out the “savings”.
May 31st, 2012 at 1:29 pm
I see the IEA is saying Chinese emissions are up 9.3% for 2011 – means that on your graphics the China trand would extend to just on the 9000 mark for 2011. Global emissions hit a record again. No sign of any cutting back by China.
I also see Craig Emerson the Minister for ?? reporting from China –
China won’t let growth slow: Emerson
February 15th, 2013 at 4:31 am
[...] Apparently, the author wants us to have control systems just like China and India. I’ll swipe Warrick Hughes’ graphic….. [...]