On the very first day of his presidency, Joe Biden followed through on his promised "everyone-but-America-first" policy and had the United States rejoin the Paris Climate Accords.
Countries that are part of the accords are expected to drastically reduce their emissions of CO2, a trace gas essential to all life on earth and making up 0.04% of the atmosphere, on the belief that it is a deadly poison that will kill us all, albeit really really slowly.
Well, not all countries have to reduce their emissions, not right away anyway.
"Developed" countries like the United States have to start right away, which is only fair as it has by some measures the world's largest economy and so can adequately bear the burden.
"Developing" countries like China can wait ten years which is only fair as it has by some measures the world's largest economy and so can't possibly bear the burden.
This means that while the United States goes through the costly and disruptive process of transforming its multi-trillion dollar energy sector to renewables, China can keep pumping out coal, the cheapest and dirtiest of all fossil fuels.
However, in a nod to providing western leaders political cover, China says it will "aim" to start reducing emissions sooner than that.
Consider it a "stretch" goal.
If you question their sincerity at all you are a xenophobic racist insurrectionist so stop doing that right now.
You could argue that it is America's very abundance of clean fossil fuels, and its sophisticated extraction methods that are constantly placing more at reach, that has led the United States to become a global leader in reducing its emissions in CO2.
But what does that have to do with helping China become a super power rival?
Now that the Biden administration has set the United States on a path in which it would abandon fossil fuels and energy independence in favor of renewables, the United States can finally return to the good old days of the 1970s, a golden era of disco, leisure suits, and long gas lines.
But not to worry, it's not like we're going to be dependent on the Arabs for 60% to 80% of oil because we won't be using any!
We'll just be dependent on China for 60% to 80% of the rare earth metals necessary for the production of batteries, solar panels, and windmills.
Totally not the same.
As an added bonus, those metals also have "critical military applications including jet engines, satellites and lasers."
So, how is your Mandarin?
