China Buys the Farm, and the Port Too

Source: https://www.themainewire.com/2024/05/new-map-breaks-down-chinese-ownership-of-farmland-by-state/

When a country allows foreign state-owned companies to buy up its farmland and ports, it isn’t just “foreign investment.” It’s strategy. And not ours.

The Epoch Times reports that CCP-linked Chinese companies now own hundreds of thousands of acres of US farmland, in some cases right next to military bases. Think about that for a second: Beijing won’t let a single acre of Chinese soil fall into foreign hands, but it’s perfectly happy to plant its flag on US farmland. And Washington has been letting it happen.

The concerns are obvious. Farmland isn’t just about crops. It’s about food security, control of supply chains, and potential leverage over rural economies. Add the proximity to sensitive sites—some purchases right next door to airbases and defense facilities—and you don’t need to be paranoid to see the risk. As one US legislator put it, “You don’t let your adversary buy the farm across from your missile silos.”

Now shift the spotlight to Australia. We’ve been an even easier target. For years, Chinese companies have been buying up farmland and mining assets with little resistance. Worse still was the 2015 decision to lease the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company for 99 years. Ninety-nine years! Longer than Hong Kong’s colonial lease.

During the election campaign, Anthony Albanese promised action. He talked tough about reviewing the Darwin deal. Yet since taking office? Silence. Not a word. No urgency. No plan.

So let’s ask the obvious question: Why are Western countries letting China do what China itself forbids?

This isn’t about racism, markets, or free trade. It’s about sovereignty. Food and infrastructure aren’t just assets on a balance sheet—they are national lifelines. To allow a geopolitical rival to control them is either naivety, complacency, or wilful blindness.

China plays the long game. Every acre, every port lease, every mine is a piece on the board. And while Beijing locks up its own soil from outside ownership, we’re selling ours with a smile.

Unless our leaders wake up, we may find ourselves discovering—too late—that the farm, the mines, and even the ports have already been sold.

Taiwan, China ...and Australia's Wishful Thinking

Here’s the uncomfortable truth Greg Sheridan just laid bare in The Australian: If China takes Taiwan by force, Australia is in deep trouble.

You’d think that would be front and centre in our national security debates, right?
Nope. Barely rates a mention. Why? Because the Albanese government still clings to the idea that we can dodge China's wrath while quietly leaning on the US to protect us, all without actually pulling our weight.

Let’s be clear: Washington isn’t asking us for an ironclad promise to fight if Taiwan is invaded. That would be absurd. Even the US won’t commit that far. But they are asking us to be serious — and we’re not.

We’ve supposedly been told these are the most dangerous strategic times since WWII. So what has the Albanese government done? Nothing real. Defence spending remains at 2% of GDP, unchanged since they took office. And after inflation, that actually means less buying power. Most of the new spending doesn’t kick in until well into their third term — if they even get one.

Meanwhile, China is building a war economy and telling its military to be ready to take Taiwan by 2027. The US knows Australia’s defence posture is weak. Our subs and ships are years away. Our navy is small, old, and in poor shape. The audit reports confirm it.

And here’s the kicker: while refusing to commit to helping defend Taiwan, we’ve asked the US to hand over three of their precious nuclear submarines under the AUKUS deal. That takes some serious chutzpah. We're expecting the US to trust us with some of their best hardware, yet we can’t even bring ourselves to say we’d use it if Taiwan — and the whole regional order — were under attack. This is a lose-lose strategy. If we won’t make that commitment, China sees weakness, and the US sees a flaky partner. That makes it more likely China tries something, and more likely the US rethinks giving us the subs in the first place.

Sheridan points out what anyone with a memory should already know — we’ve been here before. In the 1930s, we ignored the looming Japanese threat. When war came, we had nothing. Our “ancient” navy got battered. And now we’re doing it again — same mistakes, new century.

If China takes Taiwan, it’s not just Taiwan that loses.
The entire Indo-Pacific order breaks down.
China will be able to threaten Japan, the Philippines, Guam, and the US. If the US falters or is forced to choose between fronts, we’re on our own. And we’re not ready.

We can’t pretend this threat doesn’t exist, and we can’t outsource our own security forever. If deterrence is going to work, we have to put more skin in the game.

Because if we don’t, history shows exactly how that ends. And it’s not pretty

Obama lost the war Bush had won

A recent Prager U video titled "How Iraq Was Won and Lost" brings to mind Churchill's oft quoted adage "History is written by the victors".  However in the case of the Iraq war the popular view has been written by the loser.

Undoubtedly the US lost the war...in the end. It had however won the war and made real progress towards building a peace, when the presidency was transferred from Bush to Obama. Indeed in 2009 Joe Biden declared ;  

I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government," said Biden.

Yet if you ask the average person today they will blame Bush for the disaster and declare the US should never have invaded Iraq in the first place.

So Obama lost the war that Bush had won and together with his supporters managed, at least to date, to write the history. A history where the blame has been shifted from the real culprit, a Democrat to a Republican.

You can see the video here;  -

While you could argue that seizing defeat from the jaws of victory is a one off and that history would be rewritten over time to attribute blame where it belongs, but you would be wrong. The Vietnam war, the other unexpected and significant defeat for the US seems to have been a forerunner setting the pattern for the situation in Iraq. It too highlights the weakness of the Democrats when required to stand up for principle, especially when by not doing so they can shift the blame.  Again the truth about the Vietnam war has only rarely surfaced and suffers widespread misconceptions about the defeat. Thanks go to the Prager U for trying to set the record straight, but to date, more than 40 years after the end of the war, it is not straight yet. So much for correcting popular misconceptions even after the "fullness of time".

This is a major failing of our popular culture, truth will not out, even over time.  Repeatedly the media has failed to protect the people from pernicious falsehood. Yes pernicious, for these untruths sap the moral strength of the nation and undermine its willingness to fight for what is right. 

If you are in doubt about any of this I encourage you to watch the two videos.

Seeking a fair GHG reduction target:part 6- Equitable Reduction Targets

This is the 6th sixth post in the series: "Seeking a consensus on GHG reduction targets".

In earlier posts we suggested 4 propositions to derive 'Equitable Reduction Targets', ETR's for each country.

1. Each country has to mitigate their own contribution to CC.

2. If global emissions are projected to produce global warming beyond the 2C degree target, then all countries have to reduce their emissions in the same proportion that they contributed to CC.

3. Developing countries are allowed a proportionate quota of 'free emissions'.

4. Countries which face the burden of climate change have to be compensated by those who caused it.
(For the full story so far see parts 1,2,3,4,5.)

In this post we will look at the implications of Proposition 2 and derive the Equitable Reduction Targets for the leading emitters.

Proposition 2: What rate of abatement to target by 2030?

The ceiling on 'acceptable' global warming has generally been set at 2 C degrees by the end of the century. This in turn puts an upper limit on the global emissions acceptable throughout the coming 85 years.

IPCC estimates that since the industrial revolution (~1880) up to 2013 about 2035 Gt CO2-e were emitted into the atmosphere. Given the vagaries of climate models the acceptable global emissions rate to achieve this limit is not certain. IPCC has set a Carbon budget of 3,700 GtCO2-e to limit warming to the desired 2 degrees with a 67% probability (See Reference 3 for a discussion.)

Extrapolating to 2015, the budget for the coming 85 years is 1570 GtCO2-e. This averages to ~18.5 GtCO2-e/yr over the coming 85 years.

Given a global emission rate of 46 GtCO2-e pa (see Globe nears peak greenhouse gas emissions, says report), clearly continuing emissions at the current rate is not an option and would have us consume our 85 year budget by 2049. Global emissions must be reduced so that over the next 85 years the average per year is ~18.5 Gt CO2-e.

 To limit global warming to 2C the average global emissions per year over the next 85 years has to be less than half the current rate

This is no easy task. 

Global emissions have been increasing at ~2% per year over the past decade. This is despite efforts by  many developed countries. The biggest problem today is China. China is by far the largest emitter and continues to increase its emissions year on year. Indeed in its pledge to the Paris Climate Change conference it has only committed to 'peak' its emissions in 2030.

After China, comes India, another country with a large population which is only now entering its 'industrialization' phase. This is likely to lead to much greater emissions over the coming decades. Then of course come the rest of the developing world, each trying to lift the standard of living of its citizens, through industrialization, and leading to ever greater consumption of energy.

Without doubt there are real challenges here. On the other hand there are some small reasons for optimism. The most recent update on global emission rate projects a drop in global emissions(see Global Emissions Decline in 2015 ) It is most likely due to the slowdown in the world's economy, reflected in a reduction in China's output. If so it is but a small respite as the US is starting to really speed up after the GFC and will again re-start China's engines.

What is the target by 2030

If we are to achieve the emissions budget what is a reasonable target for 2030?

Figure 1 illustrates various paths for achieving our overall objective. Each curve represents a possible global emission rate over the next 85 years that will ensure Global Warming is limited to 2C.

Figure 1 Potential abatement curves restrictng CC to 2C 

Blue - Uniform fixed reduction in annual emissions of 0.67 GtCO2-e

Red- Fixed 2.7 percent decrease in annual emissions year on year

Yellow - Rise at 2% to 2030 then Fixed 7.5% decrease in annual emissions yoy

Of course the choice of a path is open to debate. One could argue that over the next 20 years new technologies will significantly reduce the costs of renewable energy, making abatement much easier in the future. This favors postponing emissions reductions to later. On the other hand it would entail higher risk, as rapid reduction without the desired new technology would be expensive and disruptive.

Without asking for miracles in technology I suggest a simple straight line. The advantage of this scenario is that it has a uniform decrease in world emissions stretching from now till 2100.  So year on year the reduction is the same. Given the relatively high global emission rate it does have the unfortunate property of requiring negative emissions for approximately 15 years. While that seems most unlikely today it is far from impossible in a future world. A world which has learned how to manage the carbon cycle to absorb more CO2 than it emits. There are many options for doing this including re-forestation of the earth, feeding phyto-plankton to increase their absorption rates, or indeed other active management processes.

If we take this uniform decrease model the reduction in the global emission rate required by 2030 is 10 GtCO2-e pa, reducing the current annual global emission rate from 46 GtCO2-e today to 36 GtCO2-e pa by 2030.  

I have used this as the Equitable Reduction Target for the following calculations. This is not to single it out in any way as the best solution. It simply represents the minimum consistent rate at which emissions can be abated and still achieve the 2C limit. If this is not achieved in any period then future periods must have greater reductions. In this sense it sets a threshold.

What does this mean for world emitters?

As covered in earlier posts, each country is responsible for abating their own emissions.  Equitable reduction targets are set in accordance with each country's historical contributions to CC.

So what ever the global reduction target it needs to be distributed across countries in the ratio of their historical emissions.

With a global annual emission rate today of  46 GtCO2-e and a target emission rate by 2030 of 36 GtCO2-e pa, each country has to reduce their historical emission by ~22%. Note this is a reduction not on their current emissions rate but a reduction based on their historical total emissions.

Table 1 presents the ERT of the 20 countries that have been responsible for the majority of global warming to date. The ERT was calculated by apportioning the required 10GtCO2-e reduction in global emissions over the top 10 emitters in the ratio of their cumulative historical emissions. The reduction target is shown in MtCO2-e pa as well as the % reduction required from the 2015 emission rate. (Note that the 2015 emission rate is not yet available so it was estimated from 2012 emissions with an uplift of 6% to represent the ~2% increase pa since then.)

Top 20 Countries' equitable targets
Rank	Country	Historical contribution to CC			Equitable Reduction Target
		C	GTCO2-e[3]	% of total	Current Emissions (4) (MTCO2-e)	Reduction Target (MTCO2-e)	ERT % from 2015
1	United States	0.160	370	22.9	6,609	2,287	35%
2	Brazil	0.056	129	8.0	1,074	798	74%
3	China	0.052	119	7.4	10,704	738	7%
4	Russia	0.045	104	6.4	2,461	641	26%
5	India	0.043	99	6.1	3,195	611	19%
6	Germany	0.041	95	5.8	936	585	62%
7	United Kingdom	0.035	81	5.0	579	498	86%
8	France	0.020	47	2.9	452	288	64%
9	Japan	0.016	38	2.3	1,426	234	16%
10	Indonesia	0.014	33	2.0	807	204	25%
11	Canada	0.012	27	1.7	757	165	22%
12	Mexico	0.009	22	1.3	767	134	17%
13	Thailand[2]	0.009	21	1.3	399	129	32%
14	Columbia[2]	0.009	21	1.3	163	129	79%
15	Argentina[2]	0.009	21	1.3	358	129	36%
16	Nigeria[2]	0.007	16	1.0	315	100	32%
17	Venezuela[2]	0.007	16	1.0	301	100	33%
18	Poland	0.006	14	0.8	367	84	23%
19	Australia	0.005	11	0.7	725	71	10%
20	Netherlands	0.004	10	0.6	195	59	30%
	Top 20 total	0.559	1,292	80		7,981
	Global total	0.700	1,619	100		10,000
Notes
1 http://climateactiontracker.org/
2 No trade data
3. Using 1.6deg per 3,700 GTCO2-e
4. From WRI site for 2012 pls 6% to cover growth for periods 2013,14,15
5. Germany, France, United Kingdom, Polan, Netherlands, from http://unfccc.int/files/ghg_emissions_data

Table 1 Equitable Reduction Targets 

The % ERT varies greatly across these countries because they have different historical contributions to the problem. The US which has been responsible for 22.9% of global warming to date, and threfore has to contribute 22.9% of the reduction by 2030. Given a global reduction target of 10 GtCO2-e pa , the US has to reduce its annual emissions by 2.9 GtCO2-e by 2030. Since its emissions in 2015 are 6.6 GtCO2-e pa , the reduction is equivalent to 35% of its current emission rate. The calculation is similar for all the other countries.

Table 2 compares these required reductions to the pledges made at the recent Paris Climate Change conference.

Rank	Country	Equitable reduction target			COP21 Pledge
		Current Emissions (4) (MTCO2-e)	Reduction Target (MTCO2-e)	% decrease
1	United States	6,609	2,287	35%	reduce net GHG emissions by 26–28% below 2005 in 2025
2	Brazil	1,074	798	74%	reduce net GHG (LULUCF), by 37% below 2005 levels by 2025
3	China	10,704	738	7%	peak CO2 emissions by 2030, lower the carbon intensity of GDP by 60% to 65% below 2005 levels by 2030
4	Russia	2,461	641	26%	reduce its emissions of net greenhouse gases (GHG) by 25% to 30% below the 1990 level by 2030
5	India	3,195	611	19%	lower the emissions intensity of GDP by 33% to 35% by 2030 below 2005 levels, to increase non-fossil power generation capacity 26–30% by 2030
6	Germany	936	585	62%	European target of at least 40% domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2030
7	United Kingdom	579	498	86%
8	France	452	288	64%
9	Japan	1,426	234	16%	emissions reduction target of 26% below 2013 emission levels by 2030
10	Indonesia	807	204	25%	29% below business-as-usual (BAU) and a conditional 41% reduction below BAU by 2030 (with sufficient international support).
11	Canada	757	165	22%	reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% below 2005 levels in 2030
12	Mexico	767	134	17%	reduce emissions GHGs and black carbon by 25% below baseline emissions in 2030.
13	Thailand[2]	399	129	32%	20% by 2030 upto 25% with international support
14	Columbia[2]	163	129	79%	20-30% reduction on BAU by 2030
15	Argentina[2]	358	129	36%	reduce GHG emissions (LULUCF) by 15% below its BAU scenario by 2030
16	Nigeria[2]	315	100	32%	N/A
17	Venezuela[2]	301	100	33%	no pledge
18	Poland	367	84	23%	N/A
19	Australia	725	71	10%	26-28% below 2005 by 2030
20	Netherlands	195	59	30%	European - at least 40% below 1990 by 2030
	Top 20 total		7,981
	Global total		10,000

Table 2 Comparison of ERT against Paris climate change conference pledges

Green indicates that the pledge is > requried by ERT and Red indicates  the pledge is < required by ERT

The %ERT colour indicates whether the pledge is higher than required by the ERT (green) or lower than required by the ERT (red). For the countries where no pledge was readily available, it was assumed reductions would be less than required by ERT and therefore are shown in Red.

It is clear that the largest emitters, US, China, Brazil and the European countries have made pledges which fall short of their equitable reduction target. In other words they are shirking their duties.

Perhaps surprisingly India and Russia, two of the top emitters have made pledges in line with the ERT. So too have mid-range large emitters, Japan, Indonesia, Canada and Mexico. Closer to home Australia by committing a 26-28% decrease over 2005 levels is committing to significantly greater reductions than required by the ERT.

How correct are these figures?

It has been a long road getting to these results. So, are they accurate? Believable?

They are certainly not accurate in a technical sense. I have taken several shortcuts, estimates and made some extrapolations when data was not readily available. These have been done explicitly, so one can revise the calculations when more data is available.

Despite this I believe the overall import is reasonable and appropriately gauges the required reductions by leading emitters. This is subject to the proviso that so far we have only considered Propositions 1 and 2, and the ETR's require some adjustment after Proposition 3 is taken into consideration. These will be covered in the next post in this series.

The core propositions and the process for deriving the ERT, however, are more important than the numbers themselves. These I believe will withstand scrutiny. From the outset our objective was to derive a process for setting GHG reduction targets that would achieve consensus. Given what we have seen in Paris, the long-winded machinations, the verbiage, the convoluted wording, the limited binding commitments it is clear that the existing processes are not working. I write this despite the great fanfare with which the final announcements have been announced. That is all show,. Watch the news articles in the next few weeks. So I am confident that the process used to derive these ERT figures is a much more equitable than the prolonged and messy process used at Paris 2015.

What about the Paris conference?

The conference has now concluded with great fanfare. Pledges have been accepted and are to be 'legally enforceable'. Really? Well so it is said. I am sceptical.

Be that as it may, what are we to make of the pledges and the Paris conference. I believe the current set of pledges are nothing more than negotiated compromises. The largest emitters due to their bargaining power have managed to force the smaller emitters to accept a disproportionate burden in effect cleaning up emissions they did not cause. Not a very satisfactory outcome. The US, Europe and China should be ashamed of themselves!

References

1. Global Carbon Budget - http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/14/hl-full.htm
2. The Carbon Budget - http://www.wri.org/ipcc-infographics
3. The Climate Change Authority - Chapter 3, Box 3.2, http://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/chapter-3-global-emissions-budget-2-degrees-or-less
4. Emissions 2012 - http://cait.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator[]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Excluding%20Land-Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator[]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land-Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&year[]=2012&sortIdx=1&sortDir=desc&chartType=geo