Why the Chinese Are Laughing at America

That sound you’re hearing from across the Pacific is the Chinese rulers and Beijing laughing at us.

President Obama and the Green Lobby actually think China is going to honor the new U.S.-Sino climate change agreement that requires both nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next 15 years.

China agreed to reduce its non-carbon energy sources to 20 percent by 2030. In exchange, Mr. Obama agreed that American families and businesses will reduce fossil fuel use by 26 percent by 2025.

This is not a climate change pact that will save the planet. This is unilateral economic disarmament by the United States as Beijing continues its quest and obsession to replace America as the globe’s economic superpower.

Raising energy prices and transitioning to highly inefficient forms of electricity production in China isn’t consistent with that goal, and it’s doubly unlikely to happen at a time when the Chinese economy has showed signs of slowing down.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are deadly serious about strangling U.S. energy security and production with new anti-carbon mandates.

That’s what has the Chinese—and most of our other international competitors—dancing a little jig this week. Thanks the shale oil and gas drilling revolution, the U.S. has the world’s largest supplies of petroleum. And America has at least 500 years worth of coal.

The planet’s economy harmed the most by taxing and regulating these energy sources eventually out of existence is the United States. Barack Obama is vowing to put hundreds of thousands of blue collar, mostly unionized American workers, out of business.

Congratulations, Mr. President. What a victory.

The irony of all this is that the United States has already reduced our carbon emissions more than any other industrial nation, thanks to cheap and abundant natural gas. Meanwhile, China’s emissions have skyrocketed.

China is building coal-burning energy plants nearly every month. They are trying to figure out how to do fracking so they can get at their oil and gas resources. They are importing huge amounts of coal from the United States. They just signed a $300 billion pipeline deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to transport billions of barrels of oil and gas to China.

Does any of this sound like the agenda of a nation that is ready to swear off fossil fuels?

It’s all, of course, a ruse. Chinese President Xi Jinping tipped his true intentions with his solemn declaration that China hereby “intends to achieve the capping of carbon emissions by 2030.”

Intends to. Gee, that’s reassuring.

The greens at groups like the Environmental Defense Fund are spinning this agreement as a victory for the U.S. economy. Their pitch is that America will now lead the world in renewable energy in the 21st century as we led the world in fossil fuels development in the first half of the 20th century.

Do they really believe we will power a soon-to-be $20 trillion industrial economy with windmills and solar power? In the next 15 or 20 years solar could be price competitive, but until then we need our home-grown fossil fuels.

Europe and, in particular, Germany bought into the renewable energy/green jobs charade a decade ago. Now their economy is catering because their energy costs have skyrocketed.

That’s the path Mr. Obama’s climate change pact would take us down. We will cripple our industries by force-feeding them expensive electric power. We will put millions of workers in the oil, gas and coal industries out of high-paying jobs. We will make electric utility and home heating costs for families more expensive.

This will save millions of jobs—outside the United States. That is why the Chinese and the rest of the world are laughing at us.

Stephen Moore is chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.