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Eco-Fundamentalism as Grist for China’s Mill

Dogmatic green policies are a gift to the Chinese Communist Party, senior climate adviser warns

London, 13 October – The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is today publishing a major intervention in the international debate around the Net Zero agenda in the run-up to COP26.

The author, Professor Jun Arima of the University of Tokyo, is one of Japan’s most experienced climate policy diplomats of the Government of Japan. He attended the fifteen previous Conferences including several as a senior negotiator representing the GOJ.

Professor Arima argues that the Net Zero agenda now being urged upon the world fatally damages the pragmatic and fragile consensus achieved at Paris, setting the West against the developing world, with the only beneficiary being the Chinese Communist Party.

Professor Arima said:

“The Net Zero climate policies are creating a divided and acrimonious international environment that will permit China to greatly enhance its global economic presence and political influence while the developed, democratic world becomes weaker in every way. Is that the world we want?”

Dr Benny Peiser, GWPF’s director, said:

“The astronomical costs of Net Zero are crippling Western economies at a crucial and alarming time in our relations with China. If we want to protect our freedom we need to put our economies and our national security first. That is the only way to deliver a stable and long-term climate policy, otherwise greenhouse gas emissions may be the least of our worries.”

Notes for journalists

Jun Arima is an economist, a former civil servant in Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and is now a Professor in the University of Tokyo. He has represented the Government of Japan in the Conferences of the Parties to the UN FCC on numerous occasions, and as one of the chief negotiators at COP16 in Cancun, he announced that Japan would not join Kyoto 2 under any condition or circumstances. He is also a Lead Author of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.

His study, Eco-Fundamentalism as grist for China’s mill (pdf) is published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London.