India's emissions cause no harm

India seems to be buying in to the US administration's counterspin on the whole global warming thing. I mean, sure you could jump to other conclusions from this Reuters headline: "India says its carbon emissions not harming the world."

They're using the old I'm-a-developing-country-and-can-pollute- as-you-did-and-cutting-back-will-harm-our-economic-development excuse. India's Environment Minister A. Raja is quoted in the article as saying, "India is very little in terms of emissions and we are not the biggest polluters when compared to the developed nations."

That is just the wrong attitude to take. For now, yes, the big ol' CO2 emitter, otherwise known as the US, needs to step up on a national level (2008 is getting closer every day) and lead the way in the next round of international talks on the matter. But if we (the global 'we') just sit back and let China and India continue on the old-school-technology-pollute-then-clean-up-later development track, while letting the US slide on taking any responsibility in the mean time, we (the global 'we' again) are screwed.

While I'd like to be optomistic on what's going to happen beyond Kyoto in 2012, if the current stance/attitudes prevail we're going to be stuck at an impass yet again without any real action taking place. Hopefully by that time the greater (global) public will be better informed about the issue and be concerned about their own good enough demand more from government officials.