The world's largest auto market has a way of dictating the issue.
 

China set a deadline for automakers to finally end production and sales of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. They will become the biggest market to implement it and that will accelerate their own electric vehicle industry led by companies including giants BYD Co. and BAIC Motor Corp. to produce EV types for home and world export markets. China will cap its carbon emissions by 2030 and stop their dangerous air pollution. They will join countries such as the U.K. and France and lead in phasing out vehicles using gasoline, diesel or any combustion-engine vehicles. Norway and the Netherlands are also considering a more aggressive strategy to put an end on fossil-fuel cars. Global EV manufacturers; Tesla Inc., Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. are trying to grab a slice of the EV market in China, but local manufacturers that have found considerable and faster successes, largely from generous Chinese government subsidies.

https://interestingengineering.com/c...ssil-fuel-cars

So, better than the Paris Awards?

So Warren Buffett (who made a 7.2% return one day in his China electric car company at the announcement) pays how much to government officials to make an announcement that maybe someday they are going to do something else? I believe the other countries, I believe China about as far as I could throw them. I believe Warren Buffett likes money. Jimmy Buffett likes bars. China needs more bars. China needs more Jimmy Buffett, less Warren Buffett.

I'm not so sure if that is really going to happen so soon, but if it does happen I guess it's not going to be the end of cheap 125cc Chinese motorcycles (just consolidating CKD exports for other markets where the eventual ban on fossil fuels is going to come later).

Warren Buffet is a funny guy. Does he (or his company) still owe taxes? Everything I see is at least a year old, while he has said many times he should pay more taxes.

Nobody is stopping him, especially if the IRS keeps asking for more.

This guy? http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1505332640

China isn't doing this for Buffett.

China has been working a long time at both controlling emissions and curbing energy dependency. Once hostile to Western-imposed environmental regulations, they've made great headway into curbing pollution and investing in alternative energy... the Three Gorges Dam, their massive solar panel manufacturing concerns...

Buffett is only one investor in one EV manufacturer. Granted, it's the most successful one, but China is going all out on this. It knows that the EV revolution means huge profits for whoever controls the biggest market share before the ICE is banned... so they're working on cornering as much of that market share as possible before other countries ban the ICE.

Announcing that they eventually will ban the ICE isn't surprising for China. They're already further along into electrification than anyone else.

China might have already figured out Venezuela won't be able to drill all the oil worth its debt. You might have already known, most of the profits from Venezuelan oil exports were already compromised to pay loans contracted with China.

China is sewing up oil supplies for insurance.

This is the same reason they are so aggressively trying to co-opt the South China Sea from Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

China does not have Russia's deep reserves of traditional oil, but it does have lots of coal and shale gas. Despite this, China is using those profits to invest in alternative energy.

Unlike the current US government, they're playing the long game. Shale gas doesn't last forever... and using those profits now to prepare for the post-coal/oil/gas market just makes sense. Put your eggs in different baskets so they don't all break at once.

The UK did that with coal, back in the 80's. The British Isles is basically just a coal seam sticking up out of the North Sea. You can pick coal up on the beaches, and scrape the earth away and there it is in opencast. Plus deep mining as well. In the 1980's the UK decided to close down its pits and buy coal, cheaper than producing our own, from the likes of Poland and even China (even shipping it 13,000 miles and it was still cheaper).
So we still have coal, we don't frack, so who knows what we may do with it in the future. It makes nice sculptures!
http://www.collieryroad.com/online/p...s/CR1267_L.jpg