"Condescending snobs" such as U.S. climate envoy John Kerry promote agreements that help China and hurt the United States, according to Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Barrasso, ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, also said "China is playing the Biden administration for fools" in a Washington Examiner opinion column on Wednesday.
"China is bent on global domination. It's the world's second-largest economy and largest carbon dioxide emitter," Barrasso wrote. "It's America's chief economic and geopolitical rival. It exploits forced labor. It manipulates global markets. It steals our technology and is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan.
"China should not get special treatment in international climate agreements. No more free rides for cheating, communist China. That should be non-negotiable."
Barrasso's column was published on the same day The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 190 governments at the United Nations climate conference, known as COP28, approved an agreement calling for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
Barrasso wrote about Kerry telling the COP-28 climate conference this month that there shouldn't be any more coal power plants permitted "anywhere in the world" and that the U.S. would join an alliance of countries pledging to stop generating electricity using coal.
"Guess who won't be joining that group? China. As even Kerry recognizes, China continues to build coal plants with abandon," Barrasso wrote.
"This is standard operating procedure under Democratic administrations: China manipulates the international climate process for its own ends, and condescending snobs such as Kerry help them get away with it."
Kerry, as then-President Barack Obama's secretary of state, was a main architect of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change.
"In reality, this one-sided agreement helped China's economy and hurt ours," Barrasso wrote. "When the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, China was the world's second-largest economy and largest carbon emitter. Since then, China has added 233 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity — 27% more than the entire U.S. coal fleet. Last year alone, it permitted two coal plants each and every week."
Barrasso credited China with "taking advantage of the international framework Kerry created" and for putting energy access and economic prosperity ahead of climate change.
Kerry, President Joe Biden, and other Democrats, meanwhile, "are pushing America-last energy policies that raise prices and undermine security here at home," Barrasso wrote.
"They've limited energy production on public lands and waters. They've encouraged the premature closure of reliable and affordable energy sources. They've discouraged investment and development of those same sources. This is an agenda for American energy scarcity and dependence," he wrote.
"Our families need an agenda built on American energy abundance. It would boost the economy, enhance security, and bring down prices. It relies on a great American strength: abundant resources."
Barrasso said that the U.S. should employ a "sound and strategic energy policy" that unleashes "all forms of American energy so that families benefit."
"That's why the Senate unanimously adopted an amendment instructing the administration to begin the process of removing China from the ranks of developing countries in the Montreal Protocol," Barrasso said.
"Shamefully, instead of pushing back against Chinese duplicity, the Biden administration has been busy undermining the all-of-the-above energy strategy that made America an energy superpower."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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