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Friday, March 19, 2021

GWPF Newsletter: The world’s three biggest coal users get ready to burn even more

 





Boris Johnson’s G7 dilemma: Carbon border tax vs geopolitical realism

In this newsletter:

1) The world’s three biggest coal users get ready to burn even more
Bloomberg, 16 March 2021
  
2) Greenwashing: Europe's aviation industry carbon scheme highly flawed, Brussels warned
Financial Times, 18 March 2021


 
3) Boris Johnson’s G7 dilemma: Carbon border tax proposals vs geopolitical realism
Vijay Jayaraj, GWPF, 17 March 2021
 
4) Ministers warned green audit rules threaten UK recovery
The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 2021
 
5) British companies face higher costs for carbon emissions
The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 2021


6) John Constable: Hollow claims to world-leadership: Britain’s Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy
GWPF, 18 March 2021
 
7) Biden’s ‘BackDoor’ Climate Plan
The Wall Street Journal, 18 March 2021

 
8) China’s record of broken promises leaves no point in talking climate change 
New York Post, 15 March 2021
 
9) And Finally: BBC sends Roger Harrabin & Co off to Wales
GWPF, 18 March 2021

Full details:

1) The world’s three biggest coal users get ready to burn even more
Bloomberg, 16 March 2021
 
The world’s three biggest consumers of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, are getting ready to boost usage so much that it’ll almost be as if the pandemic-induced drop in emissions never happened.
 
U.S. power plants are going to consume 16% more coal this year than in 2020, and then another 3% in 2022, the Energy Information Administration said last week. China and India, which together account for almost two-thirds of demand, have no plans to cut back in the near term.

This means higher emissions, a setback for climate action ahead of international talks this year intended to raise the level of ambition from commitments under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. In the U.S., the gains may undermine President Joe Biden’s push to reestablish America as an environmental leader and raise pressure on him to quickly implement his climate agenda.
 
“We’re going to see a really marked increase in emissions,” with coal consumption at U.S. power plants returning almost to 2019 levels, said Amanda Levin, policy analyst at the New York-based National Resources Defense Council. But if Biden implements green-energy policies as expected, “we could actually see changes pretty quickly.”






 





The U.S. increase stems from higher natural gas prices and the recovery from the pandemic. For China and India, it’s a reflection of rising electricity demand that’s keeping coal as the dominant source of power generation even as they add vast amounts of solar and wind capacity.

While Biden’s Covid stimulus didn’t focus on green energy, a pending infrastructure bill is expected to include plans to fulfill his campaign pledges on climate change, making the U.S. best poised to salvage progress in reducing global emissions. Biden has said the U.S will target carbon neutrality by 2050, and is convening an April meeting that’s expected to include China and India.
 
China’s President Xi Jinping surprised the world with his promise last year to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. India has yet to make any similar commitment.

In China’s latest five-year plan announced March 5, Premier Li Keqiang didn’t set a hard target for emissions reduction, and said coal would remain a key component of the electricity strategy. More detailed energy plans to be published later in the year could include specific steps on curbing fossil fuel consumption.
 
While Beijing has reduced coal’s share in the nation’s energy mix in recent years, total power consumption has risen, so its usage has also climbed. Complicating the picture is that China also has the world’s biggest fleet of coal-fired power plants, and more than half of them are less than 10 years old. Because they can run for several more decades, it’ll be tough to shift to alternatives.

“All of that installed capacity doesn’t go away overnight,” said Dennis Wamsted, an analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
 
Though a recovery in energy-intensive sectors like construction and metal production is currently boosting short-term coal demand, consumption will fall in the years ahead as China acts on climate promises, said Tang Daqian, an associate director at Fitch Bohua.

India too is a very long way from a clean grid, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this month he’s ahead of schedule for meeting the initial carbon-reduction pledges under the Paris Agreement, reducing emissions intensity 33% to 35% from 2005 levels by 2030.
 
While the country has implemented an ambitious rollout of solar power, coal continues to account for around 70% of its electricity generation. Consumption at power plants will rise 10% this year, and is set to increase every year through at least 2027, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
 
In the U.S., coal is rebounding after the coronavirus pandemic curtailed electricity usage and cut demand for the fuel by 19% last year. It’s also the result of gains in natural gas prices, which are up more than 40% from a year ago. When gas gets more expensive, utilities will often start burning more coal to bring down costs, even though it puts out twice the emissions. The EIA expects gas prices to remain high into 2022, pointing to strong demand for coal next year.
 
Full story
 
2) Greenwashing: Europe's aviation industry carbon scheme highly flawed, Brussels warned
Financial Times, 18 March 2021

The aviation industry’s flagship carbon offsetting system risks being ineffective, poorly enforced and “undermining” the EU’s climate policies, according to an unpublished report written for the European Commission.



The highly critical analysis, seen by the Financial Times, was commissioned ahead of key decisions this summer on aviation in the EU’s regulated carbon market.

The report said the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia) was “unlikely to materially alter the direct climate impact associated with air travel” and may offer little better than a scenario “in which international aviation emissions remain unregulated”. 

The commission is expected to propose in June how aviation industry emissions should be mitigated, including whether to include international flights in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The ETS limits the volume of greenhouse gases that heavy polluters can emit and requires them to buy tradeable allowances to cover their output.
 
The report, dated September 2020, was drawn up by several aviation and climate consultancy groups chosen by the commission, and obtained by campaign group Transport & Environment under a freedom of information request.

It said that a reliance on Corsia, rather than an expansion of the scope of the ETS, risked “weakening current EU climate policies”. 

There was no guarantee that the carbon credits purchased by airlines to offset their emissions under Corsia would be of a high quality, meaning their effect would be questionable, it concluded.

Full story (£)
 
3) Boris Johnson’s G7 dilemma: Carbon border tax proposals vs geopolitical realism
Vijay Jayaraj, GWPF, 17 March 2021

India, the West’s most important geopolitical ally, will not concede its fossil fuel ambitions to the draconic carbon border taxes the G7 leaders intend to propose.



 








The upcoming G7 summit in the UK will be the first-time international leaders meet physically after the COVID-19 pandemic year. The summit at Cornwall will see the G7 countries discuss the increasing threat from China and seal strong geopolitical partnerships.  
 
The summit will also witness discussions on carbon border taxes and policy recommendations under the “build back better” theme. Prime Minister Boris Johnson aspirations to materialize the radical carbon border tax may however face opposition from India, given the latter’s clearly defined energy goals that demand an acceleration in the use of fossil fuels. 
 
It is no wonder, therefore, that the US administration is beging to realise the potentially disastrous damage to Western interests and international relations from unilateral carbon border taxes.
 
G-7, fossil giants and the new carbon taxes
 
The Group of Seven (G-7) was originally a consortium of world’s leading economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Union (EU) is also a core member of the G7 now.
 
In recent times, other countries have been considered as participants in the G7 meetings. In 2020, Trump wanted Australia, Brazil, India, Russia, and South Korea to join the meetings and his invitation was accepted by the leaders in respective countries. But the 2020 G7 meeting was postponed due to COVID-19. 
 
The next edition of the summit, the 47th G7 meeting, is scheduled to be held between 11 and 13 June 2021 in Cornwall, United Kingdom. This year, Australia, India and South Korea will be part of the meetings. The inclusion of these countries, especially India, will have a profound impact on the carbon tax related proposals that will be discussed during the meeting.
 
The meeting precedes the United Nations’ Conference of Parties (COP26) climate meeting, which is also scheduled to be held in the UK in November. Given the absence of Trump, and his replacement with a more climate alarmist Joe Biden, it is likely that climate policies will take center stage during the G7 summit. The Biden administration is defiant about using its foreign relations to persuade other countries to adopt stringent emission reduction policies.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has revealed that the UK will use the G7 meeting to promote discussion and make a pathway for the establishment of the carbon border taxes (CBT). His Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng confirmed this and said, “There will be a discussion about carbon border adjusting, carbon leakage. That has to be part of the multilateral discussion.”
 
Meanwhile, the European Parliament’s environment committee has recently recommended the European Commission to implement a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” (CBAM) and use the revenue generated to fund the green transition programs in the EU. The EU is expected to make the CBAM official by June, possibly before the G7 meeting starts.
 
India’s geopolitical advantage: A dilemma for climate campaigners
 
India will be the sole representative of developing countries and the biggest fossil fuel consuming country in the meeting. India will not concede its fossil fuel ambitions to the draconic carbon border taxes that the G7 leaders intend to propose.
 
Besides, India is also the single largest democracy in the Indo-Pacific region, representing a stable partner to the Western democracies. The advantages of having India as an ally is far too important to be neglected for the sake of carbon border taxes and the G7 countries will thread carefully.

Australia, South Korea and to a certain extent Japan, are also expected to resist extreme proposals to cut down on fossil fuel consumption. In fact, Australia – -which has been invited to ­attend all sessions of the G7 ­summit — has  already made it clear that they won’t be a part of the carbon tax club at the G7 and Prime Minister Scott Morrison is determined to protect the country’s coal sector. These three countries may support India’s stance at the meeting and help the Asian coal giant from conceding to the carbon border taxes.
 
Furthermore, India’s recent tussle with Beijing makes it a natural ally for Japan. In a joint statement put out on March 9, 2021 prime minister Modi of India and prime minister Suga of Japan stated “that they would continue their effort to materialize the Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership through cooperation in such areas as security and defense, economic relationship.”

Geopolitical and economic advantages by cooperating with India would outweigh any little gains both U.S. and Australia will gain from imposing a carbon tax on India. The EU’s recent trade deals with China will also push both the US and Australia to increase ties with India and not hurt its fossil ambitions.

Full post
 
4) Ministers warned green audit rules threaten UK recovery
The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 2021
 
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng's proposals will amount to a significant crackdown on the audit sector if implemented. Kwarteng also revealed plans to make auditors inspect companies for carbon emissions.









Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, is facing warnings that his plan to make company directors personally liable for the accuracy of accounts risks stifling entrepreneurship and undermining the Covid recovery.... Major errors will be punishable by fines and bonus clawbacks under the controversial new rules.
 
Directors of companies could be forced to repay up to two years of bonuses in the event of a financial collapse or if they are found to have hidden information from auditors. “Leaving the door open to fraud” will also trigger sanctions under the proposed regime.

The boards of all companies with more than 2,000 staff or a balance sheet worth more than £2bn will be covered by the new rules. The directors of any business with more than 500 staff and a turnover of more than £500m will also be held ­liable for accounting failures if the plans are implemented following a consultation....

In his 232-page paper, Mr Kwarteng also revealed plans to make auditors inspect companies for carbon emissions as the UK seeks to meet a legal obligation to eliminate its contribution to climate change by 2050.
 
Full story
 
5) British companies face higher costs for carbon emissions
The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 2021

Companies face higher costs under plans to tackle climate change that could force many more firms to pay for their carbon emissions.

The Government has unveiled a substantial package of proposals to encourage industries from steel-making to car-making and pharmaceuticals slash their carbon dioxide output.

Proposals include extending the emissions trading scheme to other sectors of the economy beyond the aviation, power generation and certain other heavy energy users to which it has applied.

Ministers did not set out specifics but it is thought the scheme could eventually cover farming, which along with land use accounts for about 12pc of the UK's annual emissions, or 67m tonnes.

The move is among efforts that could compel companies to label products with their carbon content, swap natural gas for hydrogen and install carbon capture systems.

The Government said industry needed to to cut emissions by at least two-thirds by 2035 and by 90pc by 2050 compared with 2018 levels.

That will help the UK meet its legally binding target to cut national emissions to net zero by 2050, but the plans are likely to be controversial with many businesses already saddled with high energy costs.

The government concedes that "in many cases, the financial cost of making low carbon industrial products will be higher than the carbon intensive production methods used now".

Full story (£)

6) John Constable: Hollow claims to world-leadership: Britain’s Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy
GWPF, 18 March 2021

Dr John Constable, GWPF Energy Editor

The government’s Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy is a somewhat embarrassing document, full of the toe-curling claims to world leadership common to so many announcements across government, all supported with that sleight of hand that we have come to expect.



 







Between now and the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November the British public will be subjected by its own government to a relentless wall-to-wall carpet-bombing of upbeat public relations announcements regarding climate change policy.

Hide where you will, the “bomber will always get through”. Last week it was an eye-catching but probably counterproductively expensive legal requirement that manufacturers of white goods provide spares to extend product lifetimes, this week it is the announcement of an Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy.

The Strategy is a somewhat embarrassing document, full of the toe-curling claims to world leadership common to so many announcements across government, all supported with that sleight of hand that we have come to expect from this particular department since it was created by Gordon Brown as a platform for his protégé Ed Miliband. The departmental culture in BEIS is very strong, and successive ministers have found it hard to change, though one suspects they have not always been trying very hard.

The sly presentation of data is particularly notable here. The strategy document tells us, for example, that the world’s industrial carbon dioxide emissions account for about 25% of the 33 billion tonne global total (2019 data). This fact is then used to suggest by implication the great value of efforts outlined in the Strategy to decarbonize British industry. The UK can, it is claimed, contribute by “leading global innovation efforts”, by working to “support industrial decarbonisation through trade policy”, and ensuring that the UK can “capitalise on the export opportunities of having a world-leading net zero industry”, as well as working to “encourage industrial decarbonisation in developing countries”. Rousing rhetoric.

However, those fine words sound less impressive, and indeed resoundingly empty, when one recalls that the UK’s industrial process emissions amount to about 9.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year (2019 figures), which is a scarcely visible 0.03% of the global total, and only about 3% of the UK’s total.

Though some of the British companies concerned are distinguished, UK industry doesn’t have the bulk, the leverage, the simple physical presence to deliver on any of the world bestriding promises sketched in the Strategy. It would be harsh to say that UK industry doesn’t matter to global climate change mitigation policy, but it would not be very far from the truth.

Rather than exposing itself and the industries themselves to ridicule with implausible claims to leadership, government would have done better to concentrate on helping these industries to improve their productivity and international competitiveness, to grow and contribute to the UK’s domestic prosperity. These are modest goals, but achievable and worthwhile.

But why are UK industrial emissions so low? The explanation offered by BEIS is a carefully contrived trap for the unwary and requires careful reading:
 
Total industry emissions have more than halved over the past 30 years (BEIS, Final UK  greenhouse gas emissions national statistics: 1990 to 2018: Supplementary tables, 2020).
 
Analysis by the CCC suggests this can be explained by a combination of the changing structure of the UK’s manufacturing sector, improved energy efficiency, and a shift to lower-carbon fuels. However, emissions reductions in industry are slowing, and more action is needed if we are going to meet our net zero commitments. (p. 25)

An experienced and therefore suspicious reader will know that the phrase “changing structure of the UK’s manufacturing sector” is a paper-thin euphemism, a near-transparent fig-leaf over the nakedness of carbon leakage. Industries in the UK have contracted, while their competitors in Asia and particularly in China expand. Production emissions in the UK have fallen, by about 45% since 1990 (BEIS 2019 UK greenhouse gas emissions, provisional figures) but a great deal is to be explained by leakage.

And for industrial process emissions leakage to Asia explains practically all the emissions reduction in the sector, from just over 19 million tonnes a year in 1990 to 9.7 million tonnes a year, with a net effect that almost certainly entails increased total global emissions, since China is coal-fired and thermally less efficient.

The contraction in UK manufacturing is readily visible in the employment figures. In 1990 the UK manufacturing sector, the majority of which is accounted for by heavier industrial process such as those involved in the making of metals, cars and other machinery, plastics, glass, cement, chemicals and petroleum products accounted for about 17% of the UK economy and employed 4.4 million people, some 16% of all jobs. 














Figure 1. Employment in the UK manufacturing sector (millions of jobs) 1981 to 2019. Source: ONS, redrawn from the table on page 8 of  House of Commons Library, Manufacturing: Statistics and Policy (2020).

But by 2019 it accounted for about 10% of the economy and it employed 2.7 million people, 8% of all jobs. While it is true that the contraction in employment precedes the introduction of climate policies in the 1990s and particularly the early 2000s, the bulk of the recent contraction lies in that period. The signs of an expansion since 2010, though welcome, are painfully slow and insecure, and as BEIS notes in the passage quoted above, they are accompanied by a slowing rate of reduction in emissions, suggesting that a strong recovery of manufacturing will tend to cause emissions to rise once again.

Taking another, measure, share of GDP in 2018, it is clear that by international standards the UK manufacturing is small. South Korea and China may be exceptional cases, with manufacturing accounting for about 30% of the economy, but the UK was well below the EU 28 average.



 











Figure 2. Manufacturing as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product in Major OECD Economies, 2018. *=2017 Data; **=2016 data. Source: House of Commons Library, Manufacturing: Statistics and Policy (2020).
 
Consequently, the emissions reduction resulting from the UK economy’s “changing structure” is nothing to be proud of, and insofar as it is the result of climate policies it is largely caused by sharply rising energy costs to pay for subsidies to renewables (£10 billion a year at present), as Gordon Hughes and I, amongst many other commentators, have pointed out (See Emissions and Economy in the UK: Shining Example or Dismal Lesson?). [...]
 
It is just possible that the UK could achieve relatively low manufacturing emissions, and see substantial growth in the sector, but this would require an immediate reversal of energy policy, reinstating natural gas for process heat and for electricity generation.
 
But BEIS is caught in the renewables trap, and cannot even begin to contemplate the necessary reform, let alone plan for it.  Instead, they will take the easy course. They will spend taxpayer and consumer funds. In a desperate effort to stimulate growth in the face of high energy costs the government will offer industrial subsidies – this strategy talks about beginning with a £1 billion package – and these will create temporary flares of activity which will subside rapidly into ashes. There will then be intense pressure on the government of the day to nationalise these industries, just as there is pressure at the time of the writing for Mr Johnson to nationalise Liberty Steel.
 
The ministerial intentions behind the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy are doubtless good, but the policies on offer from the department are timid and misconceived.
 
Full post

7) Biden’s ‘BackDoor’ Climate Plan
The Wall Street Journal, 18 March 2021

Emails reveal the strategy behind the new regulation to come.

President Biden wants Congress to pass climate legislation, but that faces political obstacles. No worries—state Democratic Attorneys General are conspiring with green groups on a regulatory Plan B.
 
Climate activists have long sought to force CO2 emissions reductions under the Clean Air Act, but this has been tricky. The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) ruled that the law’s general definition of “pollutant” covered greenhouse gases. But the Court didn’t tell the EPA how it should regulate CO2 under the law.

Massachusetts v. EPA set the ground for the Obama EPA’s “endangerment finding” in 2009 declaring that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare. Green groups then petitioned the Obama EPA to list CO2 as a “criteria pollutant” and set National Air Ambient Quality Standards (NAAQS).
 
The EPA dictates air quality standards for six “criteria pollutants” known to directly harm human health: nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, carbon monoxide, ozone and particulate matter. States must craft plans to meet the EPA standards if they are out of compliance.

But unlike the six criteria pollutants, CO2 doesn’t cause asthma or other diseases, and CO2 emissions generated locally can’t be reliably measured. CO2 can also persist in the atmosphere for centuries, but the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set deadlines for states to meet their primary NAAQS for criteria pollutants within 10 years.
 
In other words, it’s technically infeasible and legally questionable to regulate CO2 as a criteria pollutant. Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson described the idea as not “advisable” and shelved it. The Obama EPA instead tried to force states to reduce CO2 power plant emissions via its Clean Power Plan, which was blocked by the Supreme Court.
 
CO2 emissions from electricity in the U.S. have nonetheless continued to fall as natural gas and subsidized renewables replace coal. But the climate lobby isn’t satisfied and wants to force states to reduce emissions from all sources including industry, transportation, farms and homes.

***
 
Enter Joe Goffman, a former Obama EPA official who is now responsible for NAAQS as principal deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation. Mr. Goffman was a chief architect of the Clean Power Plan, and a 2014 article from E&E News described him as the “U.S. EPA’s law whisperer. His specialty is teaching an old law to do new tricks.”
 
Tricks indeed. Emails obtained by Chris Horner at Energy Policy Advocates, which were shared with us, show Democratic AGs in 2019 consulted Mr. Goffman, then at Harvard Law School, on using the NAAQS to regulate CO2. Mr. Goffman connected the AGs to former EPA officials and environmental attorneys. As his new EPA profile slyly explains, Mr. Goffman at Harvard “led a team of attorneys and communications specialists providing information and analysis to stakeholders, government decision makers and the media.”
 
Consultants referred by Mr. Goffman told the AGs that regulating CO2 as a criteria pollutant wouldn’t fly. But they proposed using ozone NAAQS as what one called a “backdoor.” Fossil fuel combustion, motor vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions contribute to ozone. So the EPA could make states reduce CO2 emissions by tightening ozone standards. States might have to outlaw natural gas-powered appliances, gas stations and internal combustion engines to meet stricter ozone standards.

Any climate legislation Congress enacts will no doubt contain a potpourri of green energy subsidies, but Democrats won’t be able to use budget reconciliation to banish fossil fuels. As former EPA official John Bachmann wrote in an email to New York’s Office of Attorney General, “New legislation requiring specific actions would be much better than NAAQS, and yet I’m mindful of the obvious problem of how to get such legislation even with a new administration.” Other climate consultants agreed.

***
 
Mr. Goffman was included in some email and phone discussions and is now in position to execute their plan at the Biden EPA. Sixteen Democratic AGs on Jan. 19—a day before Mr. Biden’s inauguration—challenged the EPA’s current ozone NAAQS. Their one paragraph lawsuit says the standards are “unlawful, arbitrary and capricious and therefore must be vacated.”

Their aim is to hasten a replacement ozone rule that regulates CO2. The Obama EPA often entered into legal settlements with third-parties to bypass procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and impose extralegal regulations. Acting EPA Administrator Jane Nishida showed the Biden team’s cards on March 4 by notifying the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org that the agency plans to reconsider “the important issues” in its 2009 petition to regulate CO2 under NAAQS.

To sum up, Democratic AGs, green groups and a top Biden environmental regulator are colluding on a plan to impose the Green New Deal on states through a back regulatory door because they know they can’t pass it through the front in Congress.

8) China’s record of broken promises leaves no point in talking climate change 
New York Post, 15 March 2021
 
President Xi Jinping won plaudits for pledging last year to make China carbon neutral by 2060. But he hasn’t backed up his words with any action













Beijing’s latest power grab in Hong Kong kills any autonomy the former British colony had left — utterly breaking all the promises China’s rulers made when the United Kingdom handed over the island city in 1997. It’s just one more reason there’s no point negotiating with the Chinese Communist Party on long-term issues like climate change.
 
China’s legislature-for-show last week approved a scheme giving Beijing a virtual veto in picking Hong Kong’s leaders. The pro-Beijing Election Committee will choose the city’s chief executive and a “relatively large” number of members of its legislature, reducing the number elected by the people.
 
And it will vet candidates to ensure that it’s “patriots ruling Hong Kong,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang explained, to “safeguard national security” and encourage “prosperity and stability.”
 
The city’s Communist-puppet chief executive. Carrie Lam, laughably claimed Beijing’s hostile takeover will “resolve the problem” of the legislature “making everything political in recent years and effectively deal with the reckless moves or internal rift that have torn Hong Kong apart.”
 
Yet it’s Beijing that’s made all the “reckless moves” that have “torn Hong Kong apart.” Protests roiled the city in 2019 when the mainland revealed plans to introduce an extradition bill that would have allowed accused Hong Kong citizens to be sent for trial in the mainland’s kangaroo courts. Beijing responded last year by instituting even harsher legislation, a “national-security law” that allows extradition and criminalizes dissent. Authorities have arrested dozens of former legislators and pro-democracy activists for “subversion” under the law, with penalties up to life in prison.

Beijing’s overhaul of Hong Kong’s elections “is part of a pattern designed to harass and stifle all voices critical of China’s policies and is the third breach of the Joint Declaration in less than nine months,” declared UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, referring to the treaty under which Britain handed over the colony to China in 1997. China had agreed to a “one country, two systems” form of governance that left Hong Kong a great deal of autonomy until at least 2047. Its latest move, Raab said, is a “demonstration of the growing gulf between Beijing’s promises and its actions.”

Indeed, it’s clearer than ever that the Communists can’t be trusted. They covered up the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to millions of deaths worldwide — and still absurdly insist it’s likely the United States started it. They’re holding more than a million Uighurs in concentration camps in which women are raped and forcibly sterilized — and claim they’re setting them “free” from being “baby-making machines.”

So why does the Biden administration still believe it can work with the country to combat climate change? John Kerry, President Biden’s “climate czar,” thinks cooperation with China on climate is crucial. But there’s no reason to believe Beijing will be any more honest in its negotiations on climate than it’s been on anything else.
 
President Xi Jinping won plaudits for pledging last year to make China carbon neutral by 2060. But he hasn’t backed up his words with any action: The country put more than three times the new coal-fired power capacity into operation last year than was built everywhere elsewhere in the world, research released last month found; coal is one of the dirtiest forms of power in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Any agreement with the Communists will see them pocketing concessions as they continue to build coal plants. They simply can’t be trusted.
 
9) And Finally: BBC sends Roger Harrabin & Co off to Wales
GWPF, 18 March 2021
 
Setting the scene for a mass exodus of eco-journalists, the BBC has announced that it is to move its Climate and Science team to Cardiff.


 
The GWPF team hopes our old friends will not let the distance between us turn them into strangers. We have grown very fond of them and are really going to miss them in London ....  :-)

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.

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