COP28, the climate summit underway in Dubai through Dec. 12, has so far displayed a circus parade of aspiring celebrities jostling for superiority in the climate cult. Perhaps highest on the ridicu-ladder of nonsense, poised between a pontificating King Charles and a social justice Pope, is US climate envoy John Kerry’s absurd call to ban all power plants fired by coal.
Kerry’s Coal Plant Flub
Kerry’s coal faux pas reveals either deliberate disregard of the costs of solar panel and EV manufacturing or clueless disconnect. Most solar panels employ silicon manufactured in China using coal ore and energy from coal-fired power plants. Chinese aluminum smelters energized by Chinese coal-fired plants supply US EV car manufacturers. China’s manufacturing powerhouse fuels its economy and carbon dioxide (and toxic pollution) generation, offsetting so-called greenhouse gas emission “reductions” in the United States.
John Kerry (Photo by Waleed Zein/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Kerry reportedly stated, “There shouldn’t be any more coal-fired power plants permitted anywhere in the world.” China is notoriously deficient in meeting its supposed carbon reduction promises, in part because it views coal power as an essential element of national energy security. The Sleeping Giant is unlikely to yield to globalist commands if they undermine the critical fuel of its economy and exports to the United States.
China Rules Climate
Without China sitting seriously at the net-zero carbon table, there is no chance of the world achieving the dreamy Davos-Dubai goals. China receives mixed signals (or a wink?) from climate warriors who call for it to stop burning coal and manufacture solar panels and endless consumer goods for heavy-spending Americans. As explained in a 2021 Wall Street Journal commentary:
“Concerns are mounting in the U.S. and Europe that the solar industry’s reliance on Chinese coal will create a big increase in emissions in the coming years as manufacturers rapidly scale up production of solar panels to meet demand. That would make the solar industry one of the world’s most prolific polluters, analysts say, undermining some of the emissions reductions achieved from widespread adoption.”
Unsurprisingly, in 2022, China authorized the construction of the equivalent of two large coal power plants a week. The Red Dragon now accounts for more energy-related greenhouse gas emissions than North America, Central America, Africa, South America, and Europe combined. The trillions of dollars King Charles wants the world to spend on manufactured Chinese gadgetry is putrefying the planet with a myriad of toxic chemicals, in addition to fueling demand for coal as energy.
Cirque du Dubai
The Joint Statement of COP28 UAE aspires to “adopt more ambitious policies to scale up renewable energy and develop financing schemes” toward “enhanced adaptation action that builds resilience and reduces vulnerability, with a robust outcome.” The statement reveals the folly of this robust pollution generation:
“Scientists say both actions – rapidly expanding clean energy and quickly reducing the burning of CO2-emitting fossil fuels – are vital if the world is to avert more severe climate change.”
The circular logic is that quickly burning up oil and coal to manufacture solar panels (that will be toxic waste in 25-30 years) will rapidly reduce the burning of oil and coal. “Clean” energy is wholly dependent on filthy coal – and lucre. Kerry calculates that if the United States unilaterally abandons its coal-fired plants and China pollutes while building its economy and national security, the world will improve. Factory smoke fills the industrial nostrils of the Land of the Dragon, fueled by COP28 UAE and its jet-setter elites. America’s envoy calls on China to build more junk, while hampering America’s hard-earned energy independence at our nation’s peril.
EVs Sapping Electricity
The Biden administration has effectively halted future coal- and gas-fired power plant construction in the United States. Deliberately burdensome regulations, premature closures, and hostility toward expanding fossil fuel reserves or distribution systems burden the overstrained national electric grid.
Increasing US dependency on Chinese coal while abandoning domestic energy security, Kerry ignores the apparent problems with existing electricity distribution sapped by electric vehicles. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. recently warned of an elevated risk of blackouts this winter for more than half the nation:
“… the key factors contributing to the risk are increasing demand for electricity to power things like electric vehicles, decreasing generation due to the premature closures of coal and gas-fired power plants, and permitting delays that prevent new infrastructure from being built and connected to the grid.”
This orgy of destruction, reminiscent of Saruman’s devastation of Isengard in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, shifts fuel consumption to milk profits and consolidates global corporate dominance. The Dubai summit joins Kerry in climate hypocrisy, calling to eliminate cows to reduce deforestation while burning wood chips for polysilicon, proclaiming all coal plants should be shuttered while calling on China to supply more solar, and pretending to care for the planet over which globalists drool to rule.
Kerry, King Charles, Klaus Shwab, and the Pope – our unelected elitist climate envoys – all glorify themselves, covered in soot, at the expense of real climate action.
