Commentary
Ottawa is once again easing closer to Beijing, this time under the banner of climate policy. The suggestion is that Canada should welcome China’s pledges on carbon neutrality and treat them as an opportunity for common ground on net-zero emissions. On the surface, it looks pragmatic. In practice, it is naive. Canada risks mistaking performance for progress, applauding promises while ignoring the record of the world’s largest polluter, granting Beijing the leverage it seeks through climate diplomacy.
Year after year, the Chinese Communist Party continues to expand coal production and coal-fired generation, while the leadership in Beijing tells the international community that its total emissions from coal will peak and decline. The domestic reality is the opposite. Coal remains rooted in China’s energy system, heavily subsidized and politically protected. Renewable energy projects are sometimes used as propaganda, but in practice, these projects are layered on top of coal; however, they do not replace it. In Chinese provinces, renewable output is offset by coal to ensure that coal plants meet production targets. What Beijing attempts to call a “transition” is more accurately described as growth in overall capacity, designed to keep industry running and ensure political stability….