asg70 wrote: I know it's easy to think the government that brought us the Tiananmen Square massacre would just choke its citizens and cancer-cluster them to death forever, but there comes a point where it's unacceptable even for them. That's why even China signed onto the Paris agreement
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Don't you even know what the Paris Accords say?
China made no commitments to reduce their CO2 emissions in the Paris Accords.
In fact in the earlier Us-China bilateral climate treaty that Obama negotiated with China specifies that China doesn't have to stop building coal-fired plants or even think about reducing its CO2 emissions by even a molecule until 2035.
And in 2035 China only agreed to consider reducing CO2 emissions---again there is no commitment by China to reduce their CO2 emissions in either the Us-China bilateral climate treaty or in the Paris Accords. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
AND once Obama let China off the hook and agreed that China is free to have unlimited CO2 emissions then India said it wanted the exact same deal. So India signed the Paris Accords as well, but made no commitment to reduce CO2 emission. In fact, India committed to expand their CO2 emissions just like China did.
asg70 wrote: China .... they are just not that bright about the environmental impacts of their actions.
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Your racist slam against China and the Chinese people is quite bizarre. It seems you know nothing about China except what you see on your TV.
In reality, people in China are very bright, and the leadership in the Chinese Communist Party is extremely talented and intelligent. Over the years I've traveled to China several times to work with colleagues in Chinese Universities, and I've been lucky enough to travel all over China and Tibet----its an amazing place and the Chinese are amazing people.
The Chinese actually are totally aware of the environmental impacts of their policies. For heavens sake---the Chinese leaders actually LIVE in Beijing and see the smog every day.
The Chinese are plenty bright---they just don't value the environment as much as they do economic growth and their policies are designed to maximize economic growth. And they've been very successful at it. Yes, they are trying to reduce the pollution.......but they are trying even harder to continue to grow the Chinese economy.
Cheers!