The developing world and climate change: the disappointing truth.

• Author: Mastel, Greg

The year 2009 could be a turning point for proponents of action to address climate change. Despite grumbles from some quarters, a scientific consensus is solidifying that global warming is happening and that the release of greenhouse gases--chiefly carbon dioxide--by human activity is a leading cause. The 2008 elections in the United States brought into office a President and a Congress inclined to act on the issue. There is likely to be an earnest effort to pass legislation to create a new cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2009. Globally, a United Nations conference is scheduled for the end of the year in Copenhagen aimed at reaching a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, when its emissions reduction commitments expire. The global recession may dampen enthusiasm for action, but it clearly has not eliminated it.

Unfortunately, the central problem remains a deep chasm between the developing world and the developed world on assigning responsibility for climate change and sharing responsibility for action. Europe and now the United States seem inclined to adopt new emissions restrictions in hopes of tempering future warming, but Beijing and New Delhi lay blame for the problem entirely on the developed world and refuse to take actions that might restrict their future economic growth.

In the meantime, China has become the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and other developing countries are not far behind. Developed countries--notably the United States--are still major emitters, but even if the developed world took heroic measures to sharply reduce future emissions, those reductions would be completely swamped by continued increases in developing world emissions. This state of affairs has spawned deep pessimism in some circles on the prospects for meaningful efforts to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. Certainly in the United States, the apparent unwillingness of the developing world to act is likely to become a serious political impediment to potentially painful emission restrictions.

All hope may not be lost, however. It is possible that a new global trade in greenhouse gas emission credits created by the adoption of cap-and-trade systems might generate a pool of capital that could offset some of the costs of change in the developing world. It may also be possible to find ways to apply more broadly evolving "green technologies," now largely controlled by developed country patent-holders. These possible incentives coupled with persistent diplomacy and perhaps trade measures might create a path to a global effort to reduce emissions.

THE BLAME GAME

As is often the case with complex issues, there are two sides to the question of who is to blame for the greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere and the impact they appear to be having on the global climate. There is no doubt that the bulk of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that have been released into the atmosphere come from the developed world, which has steadily increased emissions since the Industrial Revolution.

Unfortunately, the greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere will not be removed by natural processes for decades, and the developing world is churning past the developed world in greenhouse gas emissions. China alone plans to bring on more than one hundred new coal-fired power plants--the most carbon-intensive source of electricity--in the next decade. For comparison, China added approximately 95,000 megawatts of coal-fired electricity generation capacity just in 2007; Great Britain has a total of...