If I were at the negotiating table, I'd say, as India, come preach to me once you (i.e. OECD / NATO / Western Europe) reduce your carbon intensity first. [1] W

If I were at the negotiating table, I'd say, as India, come preach to me once you (i.e. OECD / NATO / Western Europe) reduce your carbon intensity first. [1] Why should my citizens give up basic development and quality of life when the prime drivers of global warming most recently withdrew from the Paris agreement in a fit of right wing nationalistic self interest, because they felt their lifestyles / livelihoods were threatened? India and China have shown far more maturity than the US in sticking with the agreement and continuing to work with the world to find a path. CN is where most manufacturing is, even though consumption is in again the rich nations. [2] Yes, the impact of global warming will be disproportionately borne by counties such as India and pretty much all of Africa if the worst of climate change isn't mitigated. But I am screwed anyway if I cut my development to meet emission targets. So I'd rather develop rapidly to build the economic and infrastructure wherewithal to withstand the climate change disruption; the biggest producers / consumers of the carbon economy are still driving climate change [3], and those guys (including Australia) aren't too keen on actually making the painful decisions they need to. Why ask me? The US automobile industry still promotes gas guzzling trucks. Ford has completely stopped selling sedans in the US, because sedans, though fuel efficient, are not profitable. Because the US can't be arsed to extend / demand / price for the fuel efficiency standards for trucks. And John Kerry has the temerity to come preach to the rest of the world. China is already the world's largest manufacturer and consumer of electric vehicles. They have a remarkably impressive mass rapid transport system. They are doing more than the US and EU are, at this point [4]. Let us see the US invest in mass rapid transport; in rail networks. I've lived in the US for almost 10 years; while I get that some parts of the vast country are too low in population density to support or justify mass transit, that's simply not the case for the ACELA corridor, or the large cities and economic regions on the coasts. These are hard social changes, and none of the OCED countries have demonstrated the necessary will-power and willingness to accept some disruption to their lives; don't ask others do to what you aren't willing to do first. The EU has started to some limited extent, but there's barely any carbon intensive manufacturing left in the EU: all of it has been outsourced to CN and other developing nations. Once I see them start imposing a carbon consumption tax, then I'll accept they are actually serious about climate change. Come preach / pontificate to me then, or ask me to make my own hard choices in terms of such trade-offs. I didn't create this problem. It is my shared responsibility to solve the problem, because I have benefited from the carbon powered technological and trade innovation. But don't expect me to assume the lion's share of the burden while the countries that drove, still drive climate change, pay lip service to making the hard choices they need to be doing as well. :shrug: [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions [2] https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 [3] https://ourworldindata.org/share-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/share-co2-emissions [4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/270537/forecast-for-electric-car-production-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/270537/forecast-for-elec... Edit: Clarified and expanded on a few points, corrected spelling & grammatical errors.