[dannyb]

Here's the problem that I see that few people discuss. Why should China and India care? The vast majority of their combined population, about 30% of the world's total, live under miserable circumstances by western standards. Move 100 million people off the coastline? No big deal. More typhoons? Oh well, we'll just rebuild the shacks.

China has a far greater problem in balancing the needs and wants of the haves and have-nots and they are going to address those issues first. They have everything to gain by continuing to industrialize and I think that anyone who believes that they will actually cut their emissions is kidding themselves.

I think we could take a huge step towards energy independence by building nuclear plants and driving hydrogen cars. Instead of dozens of smaller problems to solve, we could focus on just one: what to do with nuclear waste.

[zb]

From memory there are around 100 million people living in the Ganges delta in Bangladesh. It's hard to imagine that India would welcome the kind of instability that climate change could cause right on their doorstep.

[icegreentea]

100 million off the coastline??? China's shining jewels of modernity are right on the coast, or hell, a goddamn island. I think China would care very much if they lost half of Shanghai or Hong Kong (ok, probably exaggerating a bit). I mean, even if they were as callous as popular belief, it would still be a huge loss of face.

Its one thing for China to forcefully relocate its lower classes, but Shanghai/Hong Kong is full of China's middle and upper class, and they won't like it when they have to move.

[marknutter]

Can't we just reprocess that nuclear waste like the French do?

[dannyb]

Yes, we could make reactors much more efficient than they were in the past, but there still will be waste to deal with.