The press has a bad case of the China Syndrome, believing the hype about that country suddenly leading in reducing CO2, when it’s the U.S. that’s doing it.

When the U.S. announced last June that it would pull out of the Paris Agreement, China—the world’s largestemitter of carbon dioxide—declared it would pick up the mantle and lead the world in the fight against climate change.

Whether India (the other leading CO2 emitter) talked China into this brazen move hoping to get in on the action, or it was just some sort of global prank, the gambit paid off big time. Almost immediately, headlines around the world heralded China and India as the new global leaders in the fight against climate change.

“It didn’t take long for China to fill America’s shoes on climate change,” declared TIME magazine. National Geographic reported “China and India are massively overachieving” in their efforts to fight climate change. Turning up the rhetoric a notch, the Telegraph of India warned “Renegade US to owe lives to India, China.”

And on November 12, The New York Times reported that China “appears quite content to move from co-leadership [with the U.S.] to sole leadership,” on climate change. It was all hype.

Though highly successful, the charade was short lived. On November 13, one day after the Times bestowed the “sole leadership” title to China, researchers with the Global Carbon Project announced at the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany that after nearly zero growth in 2014, 2015, and 2016, “humanity’s carbon emissions are likely to surge by 2% in 2017, driven mainly by increased coal consumption in China.”

Read more:

http://naturalgasnow.org/china-give-break…ing-reducing-co2/