Joe Biden's greenie czar, John Kerry, has been looking like a boob lately, jetting around the world in a plume of greenhouse gas emissions, and talking up China as America's partner in making the climate green.

Here's how seriously China has taken that dog-and-monkey circus, according to this Reuters report in the U.K. Guardian:

China approved the construction of another 106 gigawatts of coal-fired power capacity last year, four times higher than a year earlier and the highest since 2015, research shows.

Over the year, 50GW of coal power capacity went into construction across the country — up by more than half compared with the previous year — driven by energy security considerations, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said on Monday.

"The speed at which projects progressed through permitting to construction in 2022 was extraordinary, with many projects sprouting up, gaining permits, obtaining financing and breaking ground apparently in a matter of months," said GEM analyst Flora Champenois.

Coal is king in China, and to the Chinese, John Kerry is just another Western green idiot to pat on the head as the real business of state powers onward.

They had a good time playing him with his greenie games, however.  Just this past year, Kerry was touting China as a partner in the quest to go green, and China played along with the farce to perfection.

According to an NBC News report from Davos dated January 18, China and Kerry were going strong with the conferences, meetings, and talks:

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Wednesday said he hopes that the resumption of diplomatic talks with China can make a "huge difference" in the fight to prevent the worst of what the climate emergency has in store.

"We very much hope to be able to find the pathway to a breakthrough that could make a huge difference," Kerry told CNBC's Tania Bryer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Asked whether he had met with China's Vice Premier Liu He at WEF, Kerry replied, "I know that he is here. I've not yet had a chance to either bump into him or see him, but I'd be happy to. It would be something that I would want to do."

The U.S. and China formally resumed stalled climate talks with China late last year following a meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping.

...and...

Kerry said Wednesday that U.S. diplomats had since had several meetings with their Chinese counterparts, "and we will be talking very shortly."

All this, while China had just finished ramping up its spanking new coal-fired plants for the year, belching carbon compounds.

It comes as the U.S. has been shutting down its coal-fired plants and driving its costs upward as a result.

According to Fox News:

And while China has pushed forward with fossil fuel power expansion, the U.S. and other Western countries have aimed to prematurely retire existing fossil fuel power infrastructure. The U.S. shut down 11.8 gigawatts of coal power generation in 2022, bringing the total capacity below 200 gigawatts, according to Energy Information Administration data.

The U.S. is on track to have just 150 gigawatts of coal power capacity by 2029, the data showed. The large-scale retirements have sparked concerns among electric grid watchdogs and experts who have warned the grid may become unstable with so much power coming offline.

"Parts of the North American bulk power system face resource capacity or energy risks as early as the summer of 2023," the North American Electric Reliability Corporation stated in a report in December. 

"Capacity deficits, where they are projected, are largely the result of generator retirements that have yet to be replaced," it continued. "While some areas have sufficient capacity resources, energy limitations and unavailable generation during certain conditions (e.g., low wind, extreme and prolonged cold weather) can result in the inability to serve all firm demand."

So the U.S. power grid is now an unreliable thing as a result of all those greenie coal-plant shutdowns here, while consumers in the worst-affected areas, such as California, have seen their electricity costs go through the roof.

And China?  Well, China's a partner, see, not a greenie pariah state.  The coal plant shutdowns and price hikes here have effectively happened so that China can build new ones in their place and keep spewing.

What a gift to China to see America intentionally enfeeble itself on greenie virtue-signaling while the Chinese power ahead with the coal plant construction and leave the lignite dust in the air as a souvenir.

Then they get this clown Kerry prancing around at Davos, or any place where the hotel buffets are good and the room service accommodations are primo, calling for meetings and "talks" with China, a greenie partner.

They must have laughed at the spectacle of Kerry walking the halls of Davos, desperately looking for a meeting with one of them to talk about shutting down their economy in order to feel greenie-virtuous.

They must have built an extra coal plant in his honor for that one.

Image: Screen shot from AP video via YouTube.