{"id":308258,"date":"2024-03-14T09:35:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T08:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=308258"},"modified":"2024-03-14T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T08:35:08","slug":"climate-bureaucrats-give-china-a-free-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=308258","title":{"rendered":"Climate Bureaucrats Give China a Free Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Oliver McPherson-Smith<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 11, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s annual greenhouse gas emissions have soared over the past 20 years, dwarfing those of the U.S. But according to our progressive federal bureaucrats, America\u2019s cumulative historical emissions are the problem and Beijing now deserves a free pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The federal government\u2019s climate.gov site\u00a0ostensibly<\/a>\u00a0provides \u201ctimely and authoritative scientific data and information about climate science, adaptation, and mitigation.\u201d This mandate apparently includes trying to guilt Americans out of questioning progressive policies while the world\u2019s second-largest economy emits at an unparalleled level. In a\u00a0blog post<\/a>, federal climate comrades say that America\u2019s historical emissions, coupled with higher emissions on a per-capita basis, mean that \u201cthe United States bears a greater share of the responsibility for current conditions\u2014on both a national and per-person level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to our taxpayer-funded emissions arbitrators, China emitted less in the past, so its gargantuan emissions today\u20142.61 times larger<\/a> than the U.S.\u2014shouldn\u2019t really be the focus. America\u2019s cumulative emissions dating back to 1750, they argue, are the original sin for which we must now atone. Unlike China, America has apparently emitted more than its fair share, so \u201cany future U.S. emissions will undermine progress to stop global warming.\u201d In case the message isn\u2019t clear, the climate commissars add for good measure that China\u2019s emissions are actually the American people\u2019s fault because American consumers buy Chinese-made goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s (CCP) propaganda mouthpieces agree. Xinhua, the CCP\u2019s news agency, declared<\/a> last year that the U.S. bears \u201cmajor historical and global responsibility for climate change\u201d and must, therefore, repay its \u201chistorical debts.\u201d Not to be outdone, the state-run China Daily<\/em><\/a> says that China\u2019s per-capita emissions are lower than those of America, so the world\u2019s largest emitter is actually doing the \u201chard yards on climate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This readiness of taxpayer-funded bureaucrats to cast off both the basic principles of justice and common sense should be a cause for concern. While socialist regimes have long embraced collective guilt<\/a> and group punishment<\/a>, individual responsibility is fundamental to the American tradition<\/a>. This principle played a clear role in the fight for America\u2019s freedom; colonial outrage ensued after Britain\u2019s collective punishment<\/a> of Massachusetts in the wake of the Boston Tea Party. With free will and personal accountability before the law, the American people today are not responsible for the actions of earlier generations. There is no criminal or climate \u201chistorical debt\u201d to be socialized across generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally concerning is the willingness of our self-declared \u201cauthoritative\u201d apparatchiks to distort emissions data to guilt Americans into conformity. China is far and away the single largest source of emissions today. While scientific knowledge should be perpetually debated and refined, portraying China\u2019s emissions on a self-congratulatory per-capita basis is not an environmental breakthrough. The composition of the atmosphere is determined by absolute measurements, not on a per-capita basis, meaning that China\u2019s actual emissions remain the same, regardless of how they are portrayed. In short, measuring per-capita emissions is as consequential as measuring the temperature in per-capita degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than berating Americans for the actions of their ancestors, federal bureaucrats should turn their attention to America\u2019s recent environmental track record as a potential model for reducing emissions. Recognizing America\u2019s clean energy potential, the Trump Administration simultaneously prioritized domestic oil and gas production and the enforcement of well-calibrated environmental protection rules. The Trump Administration\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> \u201cassessed more in civil penalties, criminal fines, and restitution\u2026 than the agency collected in the first four years of the prior [Obama] administration.\u201d This strategy doesn\u2019t need warped justice or contorted data to justify its effectiveness; the economy grew, Americans got wealthier, air quality improved, and emissions fell. For progressive bureaucrats, however, these observations are inconvenient truths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliver McPherson-Smith, Ph.D., is the Director of the Center for Energy & Environment at the America First Policy Institute and a research fellow at Stanford University\u2019s Hoover Institution.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s annual greenhouse gas emissions have soared over the past 20 years, dwarfing those of the U.S. But according to our progressive federal bureaucrats, America\u2019s cumulative historical emissions are the problem and Beijing now deserves a free pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":308261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"China\u2019s annual greenhouse gas emissions have soared over the past 20 years, dwarfing those of the U.S. But according to our progressive federal bureaucrats, America\u2019s cumulative historical emissions are the problem and Beijing now deserves a free pass.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818341,691827595,691819636,691818073,691818088],"class_list":{"0":"post-308258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-chinese-communist-partys-ccp","10":"tag-emissions","11":"tag-epa","12":"tag-greenhouse-gases","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/0china_smokestacks.jpg?fit=1024%2C708&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ibU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":229908,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=229908","url_meta":{"origin":308258,"position":0},"title":"Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"18\/11\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The attribution of liability for loss and damage arising from \u201cclimate change\u201d is far from the straightforward matter of natural justice that many campaigners naively believe. 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