[RockIslandLine]

"It would be hypocritical for Westerners to criticize them for it."

I'm not fully convinced. When you know better, you do better. And we now know better.

"A did a stupid thing to achieve X result, therefore B must be allowed to do the same stupid thing" is not a great argument.

There's more than one way to create economic value.

[magnamerc]

In countries like the DRC or Nigeria, with large oil and natural gas reserves, who are we to tell them that they can no longer exploit those reserves for their benefit? If we don't want oil and gas to be extracted for wealth, then we need to force market dynamics in such a way as to make the exploitation of oil and gas unprofitable worldwide. We have zero moral authority on dictating what these countries can and cannot do with their own resources