you mean china have rights to live in poverty, and have no rights to develope at all

cpc, shanghai, china

us is the largest carbon-emission country for more than 100 years.

cpc, shanghai, china

If you have an economy with our current technological arrangements, you have CO2 emissions. The bigger the economy, the more the emissions. Since China, and India, and South America, and Africa, and for that matter Europe and the US, want to improve their economies, they will produce more CO2, at least in the short term. Conservation may reduce emissions somewhat in the richer countries for awhile, but it won't help places like China that are starting from a nearly zero economic basis in much of the country (even today).

If CO2 proves to be as bad as Goracolytes say, the only choice will be large-scale geo-engineering. Kyoto-style "managed" emissions reduction won't work, will cost $trillions, and will keep billions poor.

Foobarista, Mountain View, California

Oliver

I cannot see the point of your comment. The fact that we have invented the infrastructure of a destructive system now being emulated by countries who want our lifestyle at all cost is not really the issue. What is, is, what sort of future are we leaving our kids

On that point incidentally I have to disagree...a good deal of our technology also has its origins in Japan, the sister nation of China.

Darryl Smyth, Nelson, New Zealand

China and other emerging markets are doing the right thing. There is no other way to change the feeble response of advanced industrial nations to climate change and carbon emissions except palpable fear. As long as rich nations continue to massively blow smoke in the air with no end in sight, it's silly to expect poorer nations to stake out a more expensive path to prosperity. Lead by example or shut up.

Name Withheld, USA,

In the end.....The USA is totally justified in its refusal to sign on to Kyoto...even though the President and the US in general are pilloried throughout the politically correct world (mostly Euros) for not agreeing to it. We were right....the "Progressive" Libs were wrong, again.
The article is a penneywhistle view of China. The point was not even made that the government here turns a blind eye to gross polluters in all industries, just to keep up the 12% growth rate per annum. Not just the energy issue....but in all pollution control areas. Don't be fooled by CNN and the BBC who only show you a cameras-eye view of the "booming China". They, in their rush to exemplify themselves in self fladulation.....are one of the main reasons the rest of the world gets a skewed vision of the China revolution.

Marc Robinson (American), Panyu, China

The West made its progress in 100 years by inventing everything from scratch, and also developed democracy, human rights, and for that matter environmentalism, at the same time. All the Chinese Communist Party has bee doing for the last 28 years is copying the material aspects of the west, while oppressing its own people, and supporting tyrants around the world.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

Why don't we invite the whole of China to come and live in the UK?

This would solve the problem of limiting their carbon emissions and add to our cultural diversity.

As Mr Brown has explained, 'there is no natural limit to the number of migrants we invite to our country.

alan bond, lancaster, england

China made the economic progress in just 28 years reform while the west develop its indutry for over a 100 years while polluting the whole world. While developing in this short time, China doesnt have enough time to digest all these envirement problem like the west which can even export their waste now to the developing countries.
When pointing the finger easily to China, try not to forget that 17% of industry emission in China is for the production for USA and 12% for Europe. The westerners should be grateful and have nothing to complain.

gao hong, beijing china,

Why does the above reader take offense to this article? the article was clearly not suggesting that Chinese citizens remain in the stone age as slave labor to the west. If you took a minute to read carefully you would realize that this article is a timely plea for the Western Developed Nations to develop clean, reliable power because coal and natural gas are going to be used by the Chinese no matter what.

No one is 'blaming' China for global warming. The fact of the matter is, however that China's carbon emissions have already overtaken the US's as the highest in the world. Its also convenient for you to sit there in Canada one of the cleanest expanses of natural beauty in the world and support people over here burning massive piles of garbage outside, leaving factory emissions completely untreated and dumping raw sewage into the drinking water. Do these carbon emissions really raise the standard of living when these '10 people in China' are going to die of lung cancer at age 30?

Will Slack, Wenzhou, China

China has 1/5 of the world's population, with more than half still living in poverty, yet the author seem to think, if one is to lower greenhouse gas emissions, its better to let the Chinese poor suffer longer, than to cut down on individual luxuries in the west?

Isn't it convenient to blame China for global warming? Why should you stop driving your car even just to heat 5/6 of your unoccupied room in the winter, when 10 people in China are emitting the same amount coal-wise just to barely make a living? Clearly those 10 people should go back to poverty to just to make your life more convenient AND to benefit the environment at the same time?

Meng Wei, Toronto,