China met Europe in Paris yesterday.
The Council of Europe's environment committee were treated to an enthralling account of China's vigorous response to global warming.
It was not long ago that the city of Chicago produced more CO2 than all of China. They have industrialised fast. A decade ago there was no traffic in the centre of Beijing. It was a jam of bicycles. Now it's new cars.
But the Chinese delegation expressed an understanding of the threat to humanity from climate change that would put President Bush to shame. But they need to feed their people and provide a decent standard of living. Their plan is to leapfrog the dirty industrial revolution that Europe endured and advance straight to low carbon technologies.
The figures that Minister Zhiqin Zhang presented to our committee were staggering and humbling. 40% of Chinese homes are already on solar power. They will achieve 20% reduction of energy consumption by 2010. They have already planted vast tracts of new forest, reduced the share of coal in energy production by boosting renewables. Their 10% growth in trade has not been matched by an equivalent increase in polluting energy use.
Reducing the birth rates has saved the equivalent of 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2.
False dawn?
The utter abject failure of drugs prohibition has been acknowledged by America's Supreme Court.
The US has led the world through its influence on the UN into the futility of drugs prohibition for the past 40 years. Now its absurdity is hitting home. They have jailed 2 million of their citizens - mostly young blacks for drug offences. California jails are at 191 % of their official capacity.
Their 'tough' drug laws are as disastrous as ours. Since the 1970 Act drug offences have risen from 416,000 to 1,890,000. Since our 1971 Act our drug addicts have soared from 1,000 to 289,000. In both countries drugs are cheaper and more plentiful than ever before.
The US Supreme Court on December 10th upheld two lenient sentences on drug offenders. This is interpreted as a tactical retreat from the insanely harsh sentences that filled their prison to busting point.
The sentencing commission in the US accelerated the retreat by reducing sentences for crack-dealing. 2,500 convicts will be released next year and 20,000 can apply for shorter sentences.
There have been many, many false dawns in the vicious inhumane and failed US drugs war. This sounds like a genuine one.
Another con
Propaganda pretending to be news again in today's Daily Telegraph. The number of foreign prisoners deported last year increased by 70% and half had served sentences of less than a year. That makes complete nonsenes of the leaked memo. Yet still other media continue to trot out the same lie.
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