Citizens of the United States of America, the world’s largest economy, emit 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita every year. The Australians, about 18. Residents of Great Britain and of Germany do marginally better; each of them is responsible for a mere 10 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. And Indians? Barely more than one tonne per capita per year. The difference is unimaginably vast. Environmentalists and policymakers are right to express concern about a world in which everyone put out 20 tonnes a year — that would be a world spinning into chaos, with temperatures spiralling upwards near-uncontrollably. But nobody in their right minds would think that preventing that world would need all the countries listed to start cutting emissions. That is an absurdity.

It is an absurdity, however, that receives far too much sanction among the big-emitting countries of the West. The negotiations at the G-8 summit at L’Aquila in Italy didn’t progress as far as many hoped — but already a narrative is emerging that blames “developing countries” that selfishly don’t want to cut down on their emissions. (This is in spite of the fact that the developed world did not set targets for cuts by 2020, choosing instead the impossibly distant date of 2050.) India’s diplomats and its climate-change pointmen need to make the argument more forcefully that morally, economically, and environmentally, there is simply no comparison between the 20-tonnes-a-year people and the rest. Asking poor countries to cut their pitifully low emissions will cost thousands of lives. Asking the rich countries to cut their very high emissions will not have the same effect. There is simply no equivalence, and the developed world should not be permitted to claim this as a defence for its failure to meet targets in the court of world public opinion.

... contd.