China’s Carbon Targets Purely for Show
Nicolas Loris /
Dog and Pony Show: An elaborate presentation orchestrated to gain approval, as for a policy or product. See also: China’s carbon dioxide emission cuts.
One day after President Obama announced he’d make a trip to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December with a pledge to cut our nation’s greenhouse emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the Chinese State Council said it would cut the country’s carbon intensity, its “carbon emissions relative to the size of its economy”, 45 percent by 2020. But here’s the kicker:
“The goal is essentially where China would get to anyway in the next decade, according to the International Energy Agency. That has prompted some energy analysts to pan the Chinese pledge as insufficient.”