More or less echoing what I said here, China is telling the West to shove its climate hectoring where the sun don’t shine:
Asian business and government leaders have accused rich countries of hypocrisy, saying they run polluting industries with cheap labour in China and then blame the country for worsening climate change.
“This is green imperialism,” Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Malaysia’s deputy finance minister, told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on east Asia, a two-day conference in Singapore.
A Chinese aviation tycoon told the forum that the west was the original polluter, while an American businessman noted that Asia’s energy consumption is relatively disproportionate to its contribution to the world economy.
Honestly, can anyone argue these points? The West has developed based on fossil fuels, and in the latter part of that development, exported its dirtiest industries to China. Now it’s nagging China about greenhouse gas emissions? It really is galling. Happily, the folks at this forum seem less belligerent in this situation than, say, Americans would be if the situation were reversed:
But all participants agreed that instead of apportioning blame, the problem should be solved internationally and with private sector participation.
