You are talking about using existing technologies such as supercritical generators and electrostatic precipitators. The term clean coal is a loosely used imprecise one. The currently available coal burning technologies generate pollutants one way or the other. Even after capturing particulate emissions there is the question of how to dispose them. Going further is carbon sequestration, which is still a pie in the sky. Check out the US DOE website here, http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/index.html, rather than poorly researched articles in the popular press. Large swathes of the US population imagines that it has licked the problem of dirty power by outsourcing manufacturing to China. Sadly no one considers total output which shows no sign of declining. And wait till China begins to consume for itself at the rate of the US, and there will be nothing left on earth.

Whats irritating is that tendency towards conspiracy nut jobs means the real criticism that should be made about green technology often gets ignored. Wind farms, solar and other such technology require baseload backups for those moments when there isn’t any wind, that base load capacity is kept, ineffeciently, on standby while everyone looks at the windfarms in admiration.

Thank God SOMEONE is saying this.

Who exactly in this country do you think will be driving green technology, toothless deadlocked hippies screaming about the end of the world, or capitalist entrepreneurs?

Um, do you read Private Eye, marvin? If not, you might want to start – and look at their extensive coverage of greenwashing by many big corporations.

John Howard was not happy with Kyoto in part because it meant a choice for some of his voters between drinking water or not.

You are correct that this is not about China being prefect or not. What it is about is this bizarre idea that seems to be taking hold that China is somehow a misunderstood green champion.

Not according to the NY Times, that well-known propaganda organ of the fiendish Chinese:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11coal.html

Australia and China projects:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/australia-funds-china-clean-coal/story-e6frg9df-1111116053839

The argument isn’t about China being perfect. It’s about balanced reporting on the serious issue of how we all clean up our act. Criticism where criticism is due but credit where that’s due also.

It’s been suggested for a number of years, well before Moises Naim’s recent “minilateralism” proposal, that the US and China should make their own agreements whilst the rest of us take a more aggressive route (see The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change for example.

My take on the NGOs were that they were politically incompetent and counterproductive. I’m also slightly jealous seeing large numbers of deep green students with no real perspective on AGW get passes to COP15.

Also, if anyone’s interested in the differences between democracies and non-democracies negotiating in treaties, I suggest looking at Robert Putnam’s Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games

Oh no – they have the useful idiots in the Western media to do that by proxy.

Sunny – Thank you for your reply.

My view is that the green NGOs acted shamefully in Copenhagen and that their latent anti-American bent blinded them. Obama took a brave stance – I am no Obama fan, but I applaud him for his efforts in Copenhagen. Sod China doing everything it can to avoid the word ‘target.’ Let’s just bash the US. Greenpeace singled out the US in a way that was disgraceful and I for one believe that some senior Greenpeace staff should resign in shame. Who knows, some in poor countries may have benefited from a weak deal, but no – there is a chance for NGOs to grind their anti-US axe.

I agree that I would like to see all countries do more, but it is for the Chinese and others to regulate in the environmental interest. The idea that China is some heroic, green figure would be laughable were it not common currency.

go easy on the Chinese

they’re too busy executing mentally ill people

the cunts

Erm, enviro groups have been criticising the likes of Russia for its failure to obey international standards on environment regulation for years!

I can imagine you’re not a regular receiver of Greenpeace literature, but please don’t make me dig out the press releases and embarrass you for raising a silly strawman MM.

and your latent anti-Americanism is unbecoming

One day I’m criticised for being uncritical of Obama, the next day I’m criticised for being anti-American. Really?

It is certainly fair to say that the US Senate was hardly helpful at Copenhagen, and there is an entirely reasonable argument that the West’s promises are not as big as they could or should be. Even so, given that for years the US has been nowhere on this issue, its pledge of 17% reductions should, by any objective gauge, be seen as significant progress.

So you accept the main points made by myself and others. I just think 17% is not enough. And most of that nominal figure comes from outsourcing Co2 to developing countries.

The same applies to India too.

I agree.

What other nation after having one of their strategic investments blocked (in Australia) goes ahead and arrests a person on trumped up charges? (see the Stern Hu case).

I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the failure of the summit, and is pretty much delving into what i mentioned above; bringing up every other issue to throw at the Chinese. But a substantial rationale for the iraq war in my opinion (and that of greenspan) was oil; as such saying china is the most hawkish in terms of energy security is a little odd.

We are not perfect but to be silent on China or to dismiss their acts is naive. Worse – it is sanctioning a regime that has committed criminal and illiberal acts.

Noone said we were perfect or that the strategy adopted by China was helpful. What we have said is they weren’t the singular cause of failure and every other nation in the negotiation was as cynical as they were.

As for the ‘criminal and illiberal’ acts; no china isn’t a democracy, yes they’ve comitted human rights abuses, no i didn’t agree with the execution of Akmal Shaikh, yes executing him was obscene – but then i view any use of the death penalty regardless of whether its america, nigeria, india or iran as being uncivilised. Yes the chinese government oppresses the tibetans, yes i wish china was a democracy etc etc etc etc

none of that has anything to do with the climate change summit, and you don’t hear the chinese juxtaposing the iraq war, abu ghraib and climate change in order to make a point. Its just turning into ‘red terror/yellow peril’ nonesense.

Bush’s vehement opposition to Kyoto (which was akin to the US’ determination to go for bilateral agreements rather than sign up to the ICC) was based in their longterm strategy of maintaining and enhancing US global economic reach. Bush was no fool when he pushed the idea of ‘technological solutions’ to global warming.

Obama, tragically, has gone for the same option. The Four Percent offer was a slap in the face especially when he went out of his way to give China a good kicking the moment he landed. There are apologetics rolling around which tell us it was only an opening gambit. Why couldn’t the form of inspections regime (supposedly US’ issue with China) been something that could have been developed going forward?

Sadly, for a man who gave so much hope to the global community, Obama seems to have delivered the same results at Copenhagen as he did in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

As for China, I am with Sunny. China will deliver the technology and products needed, whilst the US (in particular) will be expending its efforts in re-jigging the WTO and any other organisation that it can control to monetise intellectual property.

China will be doing it whilst US & co. will be looking to control it.

What is odd is how little bang for the buck countries have been able to get for thier R & D. Germany has huge windfarms (at the expense of several bird sanctuaries on the Polish border) but still has not closed any conventional power stations. China builds dams which are hardly environmentally neutral.

The West at least is moving in broadly the right direction. It often amazes me how little the enviro groups take the argument up with Russia which is a massive polluter. But then that doesn’t fit the ‘US is evil’ narrative does it?

The Chinese have regularly used and abused the international system in order to get their way. What other nation after having one of their strategic investments blocked (in Australia) goes ahead and arrests a person on trumped up charges? (see the Stern Hu case).

What other nation plays one nation off against the other to the callous extent that China does? Look at how they use their influence unjustly in regards to Burma, Iran and the Sudan.

The Chinese leadership is exceptionally strategic and want to throw their weight around. They will deliberately snub Obama so he will lose face. They will intervene in Africa to keep dictatorships in place to secure natural resources. They will demand technology transfer as part of any investment programme into their country. They demand that the west is quiet on Tibet or human rights abuses or inward investment is halted.

We are not perfect but to be silent on China or to dismiss their acts is naive. Worse – it is sanctioning a regime that has committed criminal and illiberal acts.

I believe that Western politicians are right (for a change) in their view of Copenhagen, and the blame apportioned to China is wholly merited. The Chinese had a plan to sabotage the conference, and it implemented it perfectly.

First it greenwashed itself, with renewable energy and conservation projects – all of course easy to implement in a country without democracy. This is a narrative that many keyboard warriors have unquestioningly been suckered by. China is an environmental disaster and the little the government’s doing about that is completely overshadowed by the environmental devastation being wrought.

Second, it announced that it would be making vague reductions “of some kind”. Again, this was regarded widely as a positive step.

Then, it said that the reductions would comprise a decrease in “carbon intensity.” Now I am something of a climate change sceptic, but even I take the view that carbon intensity reductions are a fake measurement that would mean in reality that China could pretty much just go on pumping out emissions on a business as usual basis.

Then, at the conference itself, its strategy was to frustrate any kind of agreement that contained any allusion to binding targets. Of course it was successful.

It is certainly fair to say that the US Senate was hardly helpful at Copenhagen, and there is an entirely reasonable argument that the West’s promises are not as big as they could or should be. Even so, given that for years the US has been nowhere on this issue, its pledge of 17% reductions should, by any objective gauge, be seen as significant progress.

I suspect that many developing countries actually agree with the West in that they want a binding agreement (voters are another matter), and the outline is clear: the West must do the most to decrease emissions however the rest of the world has to make an effort as well, and the West probably should provide some funding for the developing world’s efforts.

My reading of Copenhagen was that it was surprising just how isolated China was with little support. It almost looked like the US at Kyoto! And at Kyoto, the rest of the world was right to go on without the US, even at the price of a much weakened treaty. The rest of the world should have left China at Copenhagen.

I do accept that there is an argument to be had about the West outsourcing some of its emissions to China. It is however for the Chinese government to regulate environmental standards in its country. The same applies to India too.

On a separate point here Sunny, what about Democracy? Many countries went to the conference with at least some support from their electorates, whereas China, being a dictatorship, did not. I understand that the vast majority of people there know little of what goes on in their name. So there is a class between democratic and non-democratic built in. And this is before we get to questions about whether ‘developing countries’ are actually a united block with coherent interest. I believe that that left-wing darling Chavez and his oil dependent economy were not big on a Copenhagen deal.

“But is China not the only hope of the Developing World for greater representation? ”

Yes, and that’s why it’s a greater tragedy for the world – the G77 and China no longer seem coherent, and I think we have to wait and see what the longer-term fall out will be. China indeed has a lot of credibility in the eyes of the developing world, so what Copenhagen means for China’s position vis-a-vis other developing countries, well,perhaps we wait and see.

Economic development and furthering a shift in international politics is what they care about.

Unlike whom exactly?

If you want to say the Chinese are as bad as the British/French/Germans/Indians/Americans/Japanese go ahead; i agree moronic nationalist politics came into play from all sides and everyone in that summit was a cynic.

But the Chinese have been set up as scapegoats and the arguments being used by commentators online to ‘support’ their arguments (admitedly on other sites not this one) are turning into little more than bigotry.

But hey if everyone else is so pure in their intentions they’re still welcome to hold themselves accountable to whatever reductions they were advocating. If america wants to ‘lead the world’ (a phrase second only in cringeworthyness to ‘special relationship’) its free to set an example and reduce its 1990 levels by 40% (or whatever the previous agreements said).

The fact it doesn’t is because its own economic development is foremost in its mind.