Benny Peiser / 17.10.2007 / 14:43 / 0 / Seite ausdrucken

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad

Hu Jintao wants to make every Chinese twice as rich by 2020. He has done it once – in just five years, income per capita doubled to $2,000 (£983) - and the only obstacle in the Chinese President’s path is the fuel needed to stoke the boiler in China’s locomotive.

The president needs more copper, iron ore, zinc and natural gas. Above all, he needs more coal to keep the power stations humming nicely and more oil for Chinese cars and lorries. China accounts for more than a third of world demand for coal and the price in Australia soared this year as the People’s Republic switched from being an exporter to being an importer. If Mr Hu had a message for the world in his address to the Communist Party National Congress, it was this: we will burn our coal and, if we have to, we will burn yours, too.

What does this mean? Put bluntly, it means that the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions is dead and so is any prospect of persuading Beijing to bind itself to other curbs on carbon emissions. We can stop kidding ourselves that China will sign up to any green thingy that hinders his party’s ten-year plan to get rich quick. Instead, the ravenous demand for minerals and metals will continue and the desperate land grab by Chinese state companies in their pursuit of resources in Central Asia, Africa and Canada will become more politically embarrassing.

Until now, we in the West have been able to sit back and watch the global energy game passively on our Chinese-made flatscreen television sets. We could pretend that wind farms and wave machines could really make substantial contributions, that carbon trading could somehow make the cost of green energy disappear. We did not understand that the real cost of our affluent, energy-intensive lifestyles was being defrayed by sweated labour in a Chinese factory. While the price of clothes, fridges, TVs and toys was plummeting, we could ignore that petrol, transport and even bread and milk were in the grip of an inflationary spiral.

That is about to change because China’s rate of consumption is beginning to have internal consequences for the People’s Republic. Skilled labour is becoming a more scarce commodity for Chinese businesses and the cost of living is bearing down on Chinese consumers with increases in fuel and food prices. Inexorably, Chinese inflation will feed through into the cost of goods that China sells to the world.

That means that competition for resources will ratchet up in intensity. In Europe, we have not even begun to consider the consequences for our half-hearted strategy of pursuing a low-carbon economy. In an effort to rein in the cost of electricity, British power generators have been switching from natural gas to coal, traditionally a cheaper fuel. However, it is rapidly losing its lower-cost allure, the European price having doubled to $100 per tonne. Even so, analysts at Société Générale calculate that the cost of carbon permits is still so low that, on the basis of current gas and coal prices, it remains cheaper to burn coal than to switch to cleaner natural gas.

For Mr Hu, this is a race for prosperity. Of course, he said a lot of other things about “the excessively high cost in resources and the environment” and about a restructuring of the economy away from heavy industry to services and high technology. That may be a sensible objective in Shanghai, where inflation in manufacturing wages is already causing problems, but a doubling of the incomes of peasants in western China will not be achieved by turning them into estate agents. Industrialisation will move west and that has been the Communist Party’s objective for more than a decade. Mr Hu knows that disparities in wealth between east and west are a huge political risk. The party needs growth if it is to survive for another decade and that means it must build homes, factories, hospitals and sewage plants.

Removing huge disparities in wealth means a massive acceleration in the burning of hydrocarbons. The four great energy companies of the West – ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Total – have quietly turned their backs on the low-carbon option. Alternative technologies simply do not deliver the power required to achieve the economic growth targets of China and India. These companies are investing tiny sums in alternative energy. They know full well that the nations of the West depend heavily on the profits, taxes and dividends that accrue from an efficient hydrocarbon economy. A failure to invest in oil and gas extraction will leave Europe and America poor, technologically disabled and unequipped financially to cope with climate change.

The feeble intellectual response of Europe and America to this energy challenge is becoming a matter not of concern but alarm. The use of food crops for biofuels, the hobbling of energy companies with the obligation to use unreliable and expensive alternatives and the lack of investment in nuclear power is frightening.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. It is not in our power to stop the Chinese locomotive; we should leave our fantasies behind, acknowledge that carbon emissions will continue to grow and plan accordingly.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article2673579.ece

Sie lesen gern Achgut.com?
Zeigen Sie Ihre Wertschätzung!

via Paypal via Direktüberweisung
Leserpost

netiquette:

Leserbrief schreiben

Leserbriefe können nur am Erscheinungstag des Artikel eingereicht werden. Die Zahl der veröffentlichten Leserzuschriften ist auf 50 pro Artikel begrenzt. An Wochenenden kann es zu Verzögerungen beim Erscheinen von Leserbriefen kommen. Wir bitten um Ihr Verständnis.

Verwandte Themen
Benny Peiser / 28.01.2017 / 10:49 / 0

Wie die Energiewende die deutsche Umweltbewegung spaltet

Professor Fritz Vahrenholt zählt zum Urgestein der deutschen Umweltbewegung und gilt als einer der frühen Protagonisten von sogenannten erneuerbaren Energien in Deutschland. Inzwischen ist er…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 04.03.2016 / 21:11 / 6

Nach dem heißen El Niño-Jahr 2015: Was macht die Welttemperatur?

Seit 1997 ist die Welttemperatur über einen Zeitraum von etwa 15 Jahren nicht mehr merklich angestiegen. Der Unterschied zwischen den einzelnen Jahren ist statistisch nicht…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 27.01.2016 / 17:37 / 0

Neue Blamage für die Untergangspropheten aus Potsdam

Erinnern Sie sich noch an diese Katastrophen-Prognose der Potsdamer Computerspieler? Wenn das Klima kippt: Würde der Monsun ausbleiben oder heftiger werden, wäre einem großen Teil…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 07.01.2016 / 14:10 / 1

The sexual motivation of religious extremists

Make no mistake: it is indeed desire that lies at the heart of this storm. It’s astonishing the degree to which both ISIS and Boko…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 15.10.2015 / 12:52 / 0

Patrick Moore: Should we celebrate CO2?

2015 Annual GWPF Lecture - Institute of Mechanical Engineers, London 14 October My Lords and Ladies, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 12.10.2015 / 20:34 / 2

CO2: Die gute Nachricht

London 12 October: In an important new report published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, former IPCC delegate Dr Indur Goklany calls for a…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 28.08.2015 / 15:21 / 0

Sonnenfinsternis in Großbritannien: Regierung streicht Solarförderung um 90%

Britain’s solar boom is over after ministers announced they would offer virtually no subsidies for people to install panels on their homes. In a surprise…/ mehr

Benny Peiser / 14.08.2015 / 13:24 / 0

Vom Winde verweht

Gone with the wind?  The impact of wind turbines on tourism demand in Germany While wind energy production is relatively free from environmental externalities such…/ mehr

Unsere Liste der Guten

Ob als Klimaleugner, Klugscheißer oder Betonköpfe tituliert, die Autoren der Achse des Guten lassen sich nicht darin beirren, mit unabhängigem Denken dem Mainstream der Angepassten etwas entgegenzusetzen. Wer macht mit? Hier
Autoren

Unerhört!

Warum senken so viele Menschen die Stimme, wenn sie ihre Meinung sagen? Wo darf in unserer bunten Republik noch bunt gedacht werden? Hier
Achgut.com