China’s Green Agenda: How the Green Tech Industry Is Empowering Communist China

In a recent episode of American Thought Leaders, host Jan Jekielek talks with Steve Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute. Mr. Milloy argues that the dependence of the American green tech industry on China is short-sighted and dangerous, and that rather than reducing carbon emissions, the West has merely exported them to hostile actors.

Mr. Jekielek: The U.S. is having record energy production right now. What policy do you recommend?

Mr. Milloy: Japan, Korea, and the European countries all love U.S. gas.

We can make a lot of money selling LNG [Liquefied Natural Gas] to those countries. We can have a robust industry and get back in charge of the price of oil.

That has strategic benefits because it weakens OPEC. It weakens Iran, it weakens Russia, it weakens China. Crippling our energy production just doesn’t make sense. The United States only creates about 10 percent or so of global emissions. The United States could go dark forever, and you’re still going to have 90 percent of emissions. Emissions are never going away.

Mr. Jekielek: I was thinking that the U.S. had done well with emissions. But you’ve said, “That’s not what happened. We outsourced our emissions.”

Mr. Milloy: We’ve used natural gas to replace coal. Natural gas has half the emissions. But generally speaking, since the 1970s and 80s, we’ve been exporting our heavy industry to Asia. That is where the bulk of our so-called carbon footprint takes place. China does our emissions for us, and we benefit economically.

All we’re doing is exporting our emissions. This is supposed to be about global warming, and all we’ve done is send them offshore.

Mr. Jekielek: It’s interesting that China under the Chinese Communist Party has become the dominant producer of this green technology.

Mr. Milloy: Not all windmills come from China, but a lot do. Not all solar panels come from China, but most do. Not all EV batteries come from China, but most do. But EV batteries and this green tech all depend on minerals and metals from China.

China is actively making us dependent on them for energy. Every windmill, solar panel, and EV purchased makes us that much more dependent. If China were to shut down, the entire green agenda would be impossible, because not enough of these materials are made outside of China. That’s part of their 100 year plan. They don’t want to go to war. They’re going to own our economy.

Mr. Jekielek: I looked into what it takes to make one of these large EV batteries. There’s a big environmental impact.

Mr. Milloy: A battery for an internal combustion car weighs 15 to 20 pounds. The battery for an EV weighs 1,000 pounds. It’s difficult to procure the materials. Elon Musk makes Teslas in China, and all these are produced with coal power. You have to drive these Teslas tens of thousands of miles before you break even on the carbon footprint because of the coal that China burns. They’re building twice as many coal plants as the United States has right now.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.