OPINION:
“Climate change is an existential disaster facing the entire world,” Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, posted in February 2019. He warned that the world had just eight or nine years to “get our act together” or face catastrophic, irreversible consequences.
“We must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy,” Mr. Sanders said. “A Green New Deal can save the planet and create millions of new jobs.”
After defeating Mr. Sanders in the 2020 primary and securing his endorsement, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden built Mr. Sanders’ climate alarmism directly into his platform, declaring that climate change “is the existential threat to humanity.”
As president, Mr. Biden did not secure passage of Mr. Sanders’ original Green New Deal, but he did sign into law major climate legislation, including billions of dollars in tax credits and investment for green technology. He used executive orders to spur projects on “environmental justice” and to transition toward net-zero utilities, appliances and vehicles.
In September, two major reports were published on how China — our chief adversary — has been pushing climate change hysteria in the West to shape policy in ways that undercut the West’s energy advantages while strengthening its own.
Beijing has played a “major role” in funding the climate change movement for years, Tablet magazine reported. The Tablet piece cites the Energy Foundation China, a nonprofit based in San Francisco but with an office in Beijing. The organization is supervised by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees China’s five-year plans.
The organization is led by a Chinese national and funds grants to American universities and advocacy groups.
Although the Energy Foundation China says it accepts no money from any government or political party, the grounds for suspicion are obvious, Tablet reported.
“An American charity, financed by American and European philanthropy, operates in Beijing under the industrial-planning ministry, is led in part by former Chinese officials, disburses Western money to Chinese government institutes, and then writes smaller checks to organizations that work on U.S. energy and climate policy,” Tablet reported.
The climate change networks, which help fund and shape policy in the U.S., all operate under the same arithmetic, Tablet reported. “China adds. The West subtracts,” according to Tablet.
“Beijing adds wind, solar, hydroelectricity, and nuclear power to its energy supplies without retiring coal, oil, or natural gas. It expands manufacturing capacity and uses the state to secure supply chains and capture export markets for manufactured goods related to wind and solar energy industries and electric vehicles, while still expanding fossil fuel use,” Tablet reported.
Meanwhile, the West’s climate change movement “accepts China’s behavior while selling an entirely different prescription at home: close mines; seal wells; shut down pipelines, refineries, and power plants; deny capital to disfavored industries; and compel the adoption of approved replacements, which, by the way, are manufactured in China,” according to the Tablet expose.
The Tablet piece was authored by Michael Doran, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute in Washington, and Brenda Shaffer, a faculty member at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School’s Energy Academic Group and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.
The second essay evaluating China’s role, published in The Daily Telegraph, was by Sir Richard Dearlove, a retired British intelligence officer and former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).
He argued that China is “ideologically attuned to exploiting the cults of its enemies not only to weaken them from within but also to make them a vehicle for their own baleful influence” — and has done so through the West’s net-zero movement.
He argued that the “greatest danger” is not climate change; it is a nation dependent on an adversary for its own energy supply. Mr. Dearlove suggested the West’s intelligence agencies are aware of China’s influence operations but are loath to address them because of the perception that climate science forbids criticism of net-zero philosophies.
“Britain is now caught in an energy trap of its own making,” Mr. Dearlove said. “As with rebuilding our armed forces, it will take a significant national effort to extract us and bring us back to a position of safety. The task is urgent.”
The U.S. under President Trump has sought to reverse the left’s progressive climate policy and unleash our energy sector with an all-of-the-above strategy: more oil and gas, more coal, more nuclear. His administration is also focused on working with the private sector to build more power plants to fuel the emergence of artificial intelligence.
This month, he touted the U.S. as leading China in AI and said he wants to leave the technology unregulated, declaring, “Whoever wins AI wins.”
Nearly eight years later, Mr. Sanders’ climate hysteria has morphed into AI hysteria.
“Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results,” he said while introducing legislation to ban the development and deployment of superintelligent AI and to pause advanced AI development.
“The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs,” Mr. Sanders warned. “The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future.”
Much like his climate change panic, Mr. Sanders’ AI panic completely ignores China.
It is exactly what Beijing wants.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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