(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . GOP Demands Climate Action From China, Gets Mad at John Kerry for Facilitating Exactly That [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-06 One of the growing themes we unfortunately expect to continue to grow this year is the classic " but what about China! " excuse , which contends that the US shouldn't have to clean up its emissions if China isn't cleaning up theirs. While there are certainly legitimate criticisms to be made regarding the Chinese government's human rights abuses of the Uyghur people, arguing that we should pollute more if China pollutes doesn't even make sense! If China's polluting more, then the US would have to cut emissions even faster to protect the climate! One could even imagine that if the GOP were working in the interest of the US and not the fossil fuel industry, they would promote renewables specifically to "beat" China in the race to dominate 21st century energy. Instead, what we have is a Republican party that says that China's continued coal and oil use is a reason for the US to continue burning fossil fuels, thereby denying the impacts of climate change and/or accepting that if we're all going to burn, we might as well burn with American Freedom Gas . Meanwhile, politicians who act like adults (and not spoiled children mad that their sick sibling gets to stay home all day and watch cartoons while they have to go to school) are actually doing the hard work of trying to find ways to get China to reduce emissions more quickly. John Kerry, specifically, is continuing work started during the Obama administration to coax China to cut carbon pollution further and faster. And instead of recognizing this progress and adjusting their perspective accordingly, Republicans who were just lamenting that China wasn't reducing its emissions are now attacking Kerry and the Biden administration for working with China to reduce their emissions. Newly empowered with the House Oversight Committee, Congressional Republicans are using their investigative authority to look into “Kerry's negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party.” And in case you were wondering if this were a serious inquiry with legitimate target documents or an unwarranted fishing trip by Republicans who have nothing to do but try and re-run the " but her emails " play, consider the specificity of their request. They're not asking for Kerry's emails with a particular person or branch of the Chinese government because they have some circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing or even a rumor that someone may be up to something shady. Instead, they're casting the net as wide as possible in hopes of finding something useful and asking for every single email Kerry's Special Presidential Envoy for Climate office has sent or received from anyone outside the office. They want "all documents and communications between any individual or individuals" in his office and "any third party, including but not limited to any environmental advocacy group or foreign government official.” Kerry's office has until February 16 to turn over their entire email archive to the Oversight Committee. At that point, the Committee could consider subpoenas, and while it'd be quite a stretch for them to demand every email, one wonders if they'd stop there. Why not ask for Kerry's used napkins next—maybe someone slipped him a note written in ketchup? Seriously though, if it wasn't obvious, Republicans aren't mad that Kerry may be working with China to reduce its emissions. They're mad because if he's successful in doing so, Kerry will rob them of one of their last best excuses for their continued loyalty to fossil fuels. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/6/2151364/-GOP-Demands-Climate-Action-From-China-Gets-Mad-at-John-Kerry-for-Facilitating-Exactly-That Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/