MUMBAI, CITIZENS NEWS NETWORK — The economies and resultant emissions of low-income countries are growing at a rapid pace. China and India are already among the top five greenhouse-gas emitters. The rest of the world may strive to stabilize its emissions at 1990 levels, but if China and India continue to grow as expected, world emissions won't stabilize anywhere close to 450 parts per million in this century.
India and China have so far argued, with reason, that the high-income world is responsible for most of the historic rise in greenhouse-gas emissions. Despite high growth, per capita emissions of the lower-income nations will remain much below that of high-income nations for several decades.
In addition, they argue, that more critical domestic economic imperatives of growth and poverty reduction will be compromised by aggressive climate change mitigation efforts. These concerns are also valid.