Californian vote inspire China to fight dirty energy
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But the electoral spending, like that on Prop 87, also showed the powerful forces more interested in profits than in the planet. This includes big energy companies, but also ideologically driven free market proponents who believe that the planet will sort itself out if only we let the corporations run everything.
China's carbon footprint is far larger than California's, and will only increase as per capita energy use begins the long climb to Western levels.
Serious steps to reduce carbon emissions are critically needed for the good of both China and the world. Rising temperatures could wreck China's food security and endanger its vulnerable coastal regions.
The Chinese government has taken important steps to work toward battling climate change. But similar forces to those arrayed against clean energy in California also exist in China.
They include some State-owned enterprises that have a vested interest in the continued use of fossil fuels, and which are powerful domestic players and can exert a powerful influence.
They also include paranoid entrepreneurs, nationalist ideologues, and misguided scholars who falsely believe that global warming is just another way for the West to do down China.
This ignores the very real conflicts within the West over global warming, the massive scientific consensus, and that the largely right-wing groups trying to cover over global warming are the same ones that most vigorously advocate US supremacy and hegemony.
The Chinese public needs to learn from the vigilance of Californian voters. Climate change affects everyone, and the short-term costs of complying with clean energy are outweighed by the long-term benefits of a safer planet, and the new economic possibilities of green technology.
China can be one of the world's most powerful advocates for a greener future, if big business and nationalist fears don't get in the way.
The author is a graduate student living in San Francisco. viewpoint@globaltimes.com.cn
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