On June 25, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz chaired a remarkable Senate subcommittee hearing. The focus was on allegations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) financially supports climate activists to hinder American energy development. [emphasis, links added]
Cruz did not mince words as he outlined what he and fellow Republicans view as the CCP’s three-part strategy to weaken its primary geopolitical rival:
First, foreign money from entities tied to the Chinese Communist Party flows into the United States to bankroll climate advocacy groups who litigate against American energy. Second, activist lawyers flood our courts with lawsuits designed not to win policy debates but to bankrupt energy producers and to dismantle energy infrastructure through sheer attrition. Third, the judiciary itself is being quietly captured and brainwashed as left-wing nonprofits host closed-door trainings that indoctrinate judges to adopt the ideological goals of the climate lawfare machine.
For evidence, Cruz pointed to cash outlays at a nonprofit called Energy Foundation China (EFC), based in San Francisco.
According to its website, EFC has disbursed over $500 million to more than 4,000 climate-related projects. Its CEO and president, Ji Zou, is based in Beijing and has a background consistent with strong CCP affiliation.
For example, he was a “key member of the Chinese climate negotiation team leading up to the Paris Agreement,” according to his online bio.
Democrats, for their part, accused Cruz of promoting conspiracy theories, dismissing established science, and turning a blind eye to the influence of hydrocarbon industry money in Washington.
Cruz’s views are universally held by industry insiders, as they are rarely expressed in public.
Rather than address or deny concerns about Chinese influence, Democrats directed their remarks and structured their witness testimony around the financial risks posed by climate change.
In our own experience, Cruz’s views are universally held by industry insiders, as they are rarely expressed in public.
Navigating global regulatory and political landscapes is challenging enough, and outspokenness is seldom seen as adding value for shareholders. Prudent execution in playing the hand they’ve been given is the preferred path.
Few doubt who is behind much of the funding of the climate lawfare nexus, but there is simply no upside in directly engaging on the issue, which is why so few executives do it.
Conspiracy theory or not, it is indisputable which country has reaped the most benefit from the West’s climate-driven self-impalement.
While China has cornered the supply chains critical to the West’s renewable energy ambitions, it has simultaneously indulged in coal consumption—by far the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive hydrocarbon—at a staggering scale, and now consumes 56 percent of world output.
Read rest at The Free Press
