[leojg]

Totally agree. As a citizen of a not (so) developed country I saw all this complains as hypocritical thinking from the developed nations that for centuries did the same but now that the rest of the world tries to catch up start crying.

[CM30]

This is where inequality and different stages of society are going to make environmentalism and nature conservation a pain in the ass.

As you said, the developed nations did the exact same thing (including to less developed ones they also stole resources from), and now they expect the rest of the world not to do the same?

People won't give up on a 'modern' lifestyle or better conditions just because it's bad for the environment. Even less so because a bunch of people living in better conditions say it could be bad for them in the distant future.

The only fix is to figure out how to make renewable energy cheaper and easier than non renewable energy worldwide. So it wins on a financial level rather than a moral feel good one.

[leojg]

I believe that renewable is the solution, more so now that the price has become viable. My country for example went from being oil dependant to produce energy to be almos 100% renewable in less than 5 years by building hundreds of eolic turbines.

But we have a small population and our economy is stable, there are other places where we can not expect to do this.

[nf05papsjfVbc]

Don't forget that some of the developed nations developed by establishing rule (by force) over other places and stripping them of resources before granting them independence.

[wang_li]

Societies don't have to reinvent every single step of development. It's not unreasonable for developing countries to skip some steps.

[woodandsteel]

Right. At the time the Western nations were developing fossil fuel energy, they didn't know about global warming, and there wasn't any renewable energy tech besides hydro.

Now it is all changed. Oh, and by going for coal now, developing nations are going to make their electricity more expensive for the next 40 years than it would be if they went with renewables. Is that smart for economic development. And besides that they are going to be promoting climate changes that will be very damaging, including economically, to their own countries.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the developing countries are buying all these coal plants from China at least partly because the people making the decisions got bribed. From what I understand, that is the norm when it comes to China.