{"id":477048,"date":"2026-10-06T05:34:42","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T12:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=477048"},"modified":"2026-10-06T05:34:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T12:34:44","slug":"beijings-useful-idiots-germany-california-and-the-green-road-to-chinese-supremacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=477048","title":{"rendered":"Beijing’s Useful Idiots: Germany, California and the Green Road to Chinese Supremacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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AI generated by Grok<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Tikak\u00b4s Substack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Tilak Doshi<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cheng Rong Dragon, Southern Song Dynasy (1127-1279) https:\/\/animato.uk\/blogs\/news\/masterpieces-of-chinese-art-5-breathtaking-dragons-from-chen-rong<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Satire has become redundant. The Nation<\/em>, an old abolitionist publication founded in 1865 and now proudly the flagship of the Left<\/a>, has just anointed Germany and California an “environmental superpower”.<\/a> The author, Mark Hertsgaard, is the magazine’s Environment Correspondent and also Executive Director of Covering Climate Now<\/a>, a foundation-funded media campaign that the Nation<\/em> itself co-founded. His two showpiece claims are an interview that Gavin Newsom gave to Covering Climate Now and a poll-based crusade, the 89% Project, run by, naturally, Covering Climate Now and endorsed, in the AP story the piece cites, by an oat-milk company<\/a>. A perfectly closed loop, which is more than can be said for the energy systems it celebrates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strip away the self-congratulation and the case is this. The world’s third- and fourth-largest economies have become a climate vanguard. Berlin has pledged, for the first time<\/a>, to end fossil fuel use by 2045. It is not clear whether this is on a ‘Net Zero’ basis or if it actually means no fossil fuel use at all. Mr Newsom says California has run on 100% clean electricity on nine days out of 10 this year. What the Nation<\/em> never asks is whom this performance serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany and California, it seems, are perfect complements to China. Beijing’s road to global supremacy in manufacturing and technology, artificial intelligence included, runs through cheap, dependable power and control of the supply chains. The two self-appointed climate leaders<\/strong> have made power dear, hobbled their own industries and handed the supply chains to Beijing. Lenin is said to have called such people useful idiots.<\/strong> Patricia Adams put the same point to Western greens in the Financial Post<\/a><\/em>, and at greater length in her Global Warming Policy Foundation paper the Road from Paris<\/em>. The pattern was already plain when Beijing was being cast as climate saviour<\/a>: sign the green communiqu\u00e9, collect the praise, keep building coal power plants as if there is no tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of realpolitik<\/em>, in contrast to public posturing, China has little time for decarbonisation’s urgency.<\/strong> In this it is not alone. The US under Trump, India and Russia \u2014 representing over 40% of global emissions \u2014 reject the climate crisis narrative. These countries are intent on prioritising economic growth over climate alarmism and debilitating Net Zero policies. They share China’s pragmatism: aspirations for economic progress trumps unproven predictions of climate catastrophe. The first order imperative of Russia, China, India and their counterparts in the developing countries are regime and national security, dependent ultimately on improving the general welfare of their citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A superpower that imports its energy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany has the highest household electricity prices in the EU<\/a>, \u20ac0.38 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in the first half of 2025. A Verivox comparison<\/a> for the second quarter of 2026 put the German household tariff at \u20ac0.36, more than five times the \u20ac0.07 paid in China. California’s residential price reached US$0.35<\/a> in April, against a national average of US$0.18 per kWh. Industrial users tell the same story. A steel mill in Germany can pay an order of magnitude more for power than a smelter in the Persian Gulf. More than 60% of the German household bill is taxes, levies and network charges \u2013 the cost of integrating weather-dependent generation and of paying for backup that must stand idle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany sits on shale gas that its federal geological institute puts at 320 to 2,030 billion cubic metres<\/a> of technically recoverable resource, far exceeding its conventional reserves, yet a 2016 ban<\/a> keeps the frackers out while Berlin imported some 684 terawatt-hours of gas<\/a> in 2025. That import dependence is a policy choice, and a bad one. Germany’s answer to the 2022 gas shock, after it sanctioned Russian gas imports to itself<\/a>, was to lean harder on lignite while its last nuclear plants closed on schedule and were demolished with fanfare. Dunkelflaute<\/strong><\/em>, the cold, still, dark spells northern Europe undergoes, cannot be bridged by batteries at any price an economy could bear. Brussels, whose energy policy takes its cues from Berlin, is no better. Norway, outside the EU, ignores Brussels: it brought the Johan Castberg field onstream last year and its gas already covers about 30% of EU consumption<\/a>. The Norwegians are not saving the planet; they are selling German’s heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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