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China doubling down on Coal is as much about military strategy —their “Malacca Dilemma”— as it is about cheap industrialization & electricity. https://twitter.com/HeuristicLineup/status/1125121874755604480
"Energy insecurity" is a euphemism for China's fears: 1) US Navy could blockade Oil & Gas tankers in straits of Malacca 2) US $ sanctions could choke ability to pay for Oil & Gas. Its "Look West" coal boom (ie hedging) is our era's MAD. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://twitter.com/chinadialogue/status/1194318191037685761
Asian Coal Question hangs as centrally around the 21stC as the 'German Question' did in the 20thC. Can live with a China that is authoritarian & powerful but not one that burns coal. Current strategy of containment, pushes China towards coal-powered autarchy. #GeopoliticsofGHGs
Alternative justifications that China's leaders have stated about the post 2000s "Develop the West" policy are a) unbalanced growth on eastern seaboard b) nation building. But hard to disconfirm hypothesis of strategic overland coal.
And who can blame them for assessing threats rationally? US military strategies in Asia —Distant blockade’, ‘maritime denial’— center around naval chokepoints to deny China access to gulf energy & western markets.
Succinct appraisal here ht @policytensor https://policytensor.com/2015/04/09/war-strategies-in-asia/
Succinct appraisal here ht @policytensor https://policytensor.com/2015/04/09/war-strategies-in-asia/
Everything you may have heard about Obama's Pivot to Asia or Chinese military buildup along south china seas or Andaman/Philipine/Australian archipelagos bristling with military kit flows from those US war strategies. Oh, and submarines. Never forget subs. https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1043194809995784192
That the worlds 2 great powers are also its top fossil producers (US -O&G; China -Coal) worries everyone. It makes Geopolitics & GHGs inseparable. We are in a MAD, a Mexican Standoff, a pick-your-individually-rational-collectively-disastrous metaphor. https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/989962177694990336
Fortunately, we have a video of Oct 2019 meeting of China's Natl Energy Commission chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - "It is necessary now to make a choice between 2 admittedly regrettable, but distinguishable postwar environments..."
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - "It is necessary now to make a choice between 2 admittedly regrettable, but distinguishable postwar environments..."
Pan to @adam_tooze 's unforgettable scene: "Imagine instead the president & his buggy careening around the five-acre flight deck of a $13Bn... nuclear-powered aircraft carrier engaged in ‘dynamic force deployment’ to the South China Sea" #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n07/adam-tooze/is-this-the-end-of-the-american-century
It would be a climate disaster if US-China 'cold war' moves to energy or $ blockades. China is already accelerating inefficient coal-to-liquids & coal-to-gas. Poor Western record of using sanctions on coal-rich but oil-poor nations thru 20thC ht @njtmulder https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-green-new-deal/
Climate & Geopolitics is about to get supercharged in 2020s. Was it an accident that Trump echoed the Nuclear era MAD question “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris”? #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1199024954911711232
And it is Mutually Assured Destruction for US & China to double down on fossils. Billion-dollar disasters are mounting in the US. “The collective damage done by Atlantic hurricanes in 2017 was more than half of the entire budget of our Dept. of Defense”! https://apnews.com/dbd81ca2a7244ea088a8208bab1c87e2/Warned-30-years-ago,-global-warming-'is-in-our-living-room
Climate disasters mount in China too. Though CCP suppresses their reports, recent evidence is shocking. Pouring all that concrete into cities since the Crash has disrupted infrastructure. Forced-pace urbanization comes with flooding. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/sites/default/files/D2_Hu.pdf
"Xi’s Chinese dream is the most spectacular Keynesian promise ever made".Yet the combination of Coal, Concrete & US need for Primacy will end in catastrophe.
Planetary stability requires US-China modus vivendi #GeopoliticsOfGHGs ht @adam_tooze @GeoffPMann https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n17/adam-tooze/tempestuous-seasons
Planetary stability requires US-China modus vivendi #GeopoliticsOfGHGs ht @adam_tooze @GeoffPMann https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n17/adam-tooze/tempestuous-seasons
Wonder if our era's Keynes is scribbling furiously somewhere in Beijing with 'mortal dread at the revolutionary overthrow of the social order' by 𝗖𝗖𝗣. 𝗖oal, 𝗖oncrete & US 𝗣rimacy. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs ht @MonaAli_NY_US https://twitter.com/MonaAli_NY_US/status/1202011252014374914
2010s saw a global Green industrial policy — a value chain strung between US-EU-China — & plummeting green tech costs. But with the US-China 'cold war' ratcheting up, either it tamps down next election or EU-China coalition obtains. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://twitter.com/jonasnahm/status/1195053944143306752
WW2 "Green Lend-Lease" is a model for global climate action. Faced w common threats, Western financing helped China make planes, India tanks,& Russia engines.
Common planetary survival too needs pragmatic IP tech transfer #GeopoliticsOfGHGs ht @njtmulder https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-green-new-deal/
Common planetary survival too needs pragmatic IP tech transfer #GeopoliticsOfGHGs ht @njtmulder https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-green-new-deal/
11,000 words in New Yorker on the dangerously unstable US-China conflict that will "fundamentally shape the 21st Century".
Number of mentions of Climate Change: Zero.
They are only the world's largest producers of Coal & Oil... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/13/the-future-of-americas-contest-with-china
Number of mentions of Climate Change: Zero.
They are only the world's largest producers of Coal & Oil... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/13/the-future-of-americas-contest-with-china
A Planet-sized Sin of omission? Astonished by gap bw Climate & Politics. @EndClimtSilence @DoctorVive @dwallacewells @bentleyballan @alybatt @oikeios @triofrancos @aldatweets @adam_tooze @AnnPettifor @MaxJerneck @picharbonnier @kellysgallagher @jonasnahm https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1214572340757090310
Green New Deal needs a Realpolitik component. They are world's largest producers of Coal (China) & Oil (US, overtook Saudis after fracking boom). Desperately need a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation treaty between the MAD superpowers ht @PeterJNewell_ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2019.1636759
#GreenNewDeal needs Realpolitik. "The West is a junior partner in whatever collective climate solution Beijing & the other emerging Asian powers can live with" @adam_tooze #GeopoliticsofGHGs https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/15/climate-socialism-supercharged-left-green-new-deal/
For the West to realize its climate dependency on Asian powers requires a shift. It must reformulate 'Fossil Capitalism' narrative that emphasizes its Agency & Asia's Dependency. Essential scholarship @natterjee on 'Asian Anthropocene' #GeopoliticsOfGHGs https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/asian-anthropocene-electricity-and-fossil-developmentalism/AE16FED6E748133591C25081E33CC777
The US and China are dangerously close to a military confrontation in the South China Sea. @mklare1 https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/05/21/the-us-china-are-close-military-confrontation-south-china-sea/
"New energy and infrastructure projects, providing more ‘leeway for strategic manoeuvring’". Crucial #5yp tussle between reformist technocrats (who want to swear off non-performing coal assets) & state-owned enterprises (keen to securitize their interests) https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1264541658986708993
