China, India, and Climate Change Take the Lead - 2 views
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Charlie Wallace on 20 Mar 13Although emerging markets are a very large portion of the problem, they are necessary for any solution. Most books that talk about the environment has the West as the starting point. This is a very understandable starting place. For many decades the United States of America has been the largest polluter, contributing to the problem more than any other country in the world. Europe, has environmental laws to negotiate new and different solutions. Now Europe and the United States of America are only in supporting roles. Now the leaders are China and India. China emites nearly half of current global emissions. India accounted for 83% of the worldwide increase of carbon emissions from the years 2000-2011. Global warming started with industrialized countries. But, it can only end with developing ones. India and China are fully engrossed in growth of the countries. To continue to feed this growth they are building more and more coal-fired power stations, which is a very bad form of energy. The cities in China and India fume smoke and the rivers are catching on fire. Global warming will effect developing countries very much more then rich ones. A little bit because tropical and sub tropical areas are much more sensitive to warming and cooling temperatures. Richer areas can pay for better flood control and drought-resistent seeds that poor countries. William Cline, an economist, estimated a rise of merely 2.5% in temperature wold cause a 6% decrees in agriculture productivity in the United States of America. but in India there would be a 38% decrees. China and India are very vulnerable. New economic giants (such as China and India) will have to push rich countries to make more environmental compromises. Messrs Mattoo and Submaranian estimate that if China and India want to cut their carbon emissions by 30% in 2020, their production rate would fall 6-7% and the manufactured exports would be effected much more than that. Poor countries cannot handle the issues as well.