China: Let the U.S. Pay for Our Pollution

China, whose government is short on cash, is disingenuously agreeing to join with other nations in pursuing reduction of emissions from its industries, but there’s a catch: they want U.S. taxpayers to buy more products from Chinese industries to offset the fees they incur from their pollution.

The Doha conferences in November and December of last year called for the Kyoto Protocol to extend to 2020, an essentially meaningless gesture because China abandoned Kyoto in 2011; Russia, Canada and Japan have walked out, too. Only 15% of the world’s emissions are now covered by the Protocol. The U.S. never ratified the Kyoto Protocol because it left China, the worst producer of greenhouse gases, without an emissions cap.

Beijing claims that China will cut CO2 emissions by roughly 45% per unit of GDP in the next eight years, a move motivated by the fact that half of the 4,200 projects worldwide that supply environmental offsets reside in China, and thus environmental cash flows their way.

Because the Doha conference insisted that developed nations pay off poorer nations for the damage incurred by the developed nations’ pollution, up to $10 billion per year, cleaning up will be costly. Thus, the Chinese industries cry that they cannot afford to pay for the damage they incur.

All the posturing by the Chinese government in favor of meeting emissions standards is based on pressuring the U.S. to pay for it.