Developing Nations Reject Western Carbon Colonialism By Vijay Jayaraj
From the perspective of a developing country, climate crusaders are particularly annoying when they travel in fuel-guzzling private jets to exclusive locations for United Nations’ climate conferences.
Developing Nations Reject Western Carbon Colonialism
By Vijay Jayaraj
Guyana President Irfaan Ali is the latest leader of a developing nation to publicly note the hypocrisy of those pressuring countries like his to forego wealth in pursuit of a “green” agenda.
In a fiery response to a BBC interviewer’s questioning of Guyana’s “right” to emit carbon dioxide in developing $150 billion of oil and gas reserves, President Ali questioned the reporter’s “right to lecture us on climate change. I will lecture you on climate change.”
It is not new, but still dismaying, that many leaders of developed nations assume a posture of moral superiority in leveling criticisms at countries with expanding economies and increasing emissions of carbon dioxide. Ensconced in seats of power from Brussels to Washington, D.C., they point accusing fingers while overlooking centuries of using coal, oil and natural gas to enrich their own countries.
The double standard fails to acknowledge the urgent needs of less advanced countries endeavouring to improve the lot of an impoverished citizenry. Such a nation is Guyana, the third smallest South American country in area.
The Guyanese president told the British journalist that it was hypocritical for rich countries to ask poor ones to reduce emissions. President Ali questioned the moral authority of those that benefited from the hydrocarbon-driven Industrial Revolution, whose most notable technological impetus was the coal-fired steam engine.
“The world, in the last 50 years, has lost 65% of all its biodiversity,” said the president whose country is home to a large rainforest. “We have kept our biodiversity. Are you valuing it. Are you ready to pay for it? When is the developed world going to pay for it, or are you in their pockets?”
President Ali’s comments echo those of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others who have rejected the climate alarmists’ hostility to fossil fuels in favor of exploiting hydrocarbons to support economic growth.
From the perspective of a developing country, the climate crusaders are particularly annoying when they travel in fuel-guzzling private jets to exclusive locations for United Nations’ climate conferences. The amount of CO2 such a flights release surpasses the yearly emissions of an ordinary individual in a developing country.
Per Capita Emissions and Energy Poverty
Except for nuclear power, fossil fuels are the densest form of energy and so are the most efficient in powering economic growth. Their use — and their CO2 emissions — have a direct relationship with a society’s wealth. Economies with low poverty rates either have high per capita emissions, or have been through a phase when emissions were elevated, because of the central role that fossil fuels played in their development.
Thus, barring a few countries that are blessed with abundant water resources for hydroelectric generation or with nuclear power plants, low per capita emissions equate to poverty. While large developing countries like India produce a significant amount of CO2 emissions in total, the per capita emissions of individual citizens are dwarfed by the carbon footprints of people in the developed West.
For example, global per capita CO2 emissions in 2022 were just over 4 tons while India’s were less than 2 tons. In the U.K. — the BBC’s home — per capita emissions were almost 5 tons.
The African continent has per capita emissions of less than 1 ton; the Central African Republic, 0.05 tons, with 70 percent of its citizens in extreme poverty, making it the fifth poorest country in the world. Another African country among the five poorest is the Democratic Republic of Congo with just 0.04 tons per capita. According to the World Bank, 4.6% of the Congolese people live on less than $2.15 per day.
Doomsday-promoting politicians cling to their luxuries while millions have no access to clean water, modern appliances and automobiles. The Guyanese president and others are quite right to call out the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy.
This commentary was first published at Real Clear Energy on April 24, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.
Indeed!
Great article by Vijay and I concur with his sentiments - its hypocrisy at its best that western leaders, having benefitted from the amazing benefits fossil fuels have delivered their nations since the IR, have the bare faced hubris to try to deny developing nations the same benefits, and of course, they’re now trying to deny their own masses too
Despite billions in funding, over decades, the useless, corrupt UN still pontificates from its high altar of hubris, that we need to end third world poverty, hunger and thirst, yet despite those billions, third world nations remain third world - where did all those billions go? Certainly not to end the plight of the masses in those places (yet their ruling classes seem to be doing fine)
Africa as one example, is one continent where poverty should not exist - its grounds are full of oil, gas and desperately needed minerals, as well as precious commodities - China’s belt & road initiative seeks to capture as much of that as it can, both for its own internal benefit and as a western bargaining chip
If corruption and malfeasance were ended in many nations and their indigenous treasures used to develop the nation for all its citizens, Africa would be more akin to the Middle East power houses of Saudi, Qatar etc - golden cities would rise from the wasteland rubble and mass migrations to other parts of the world would end
I hope developing nations continue to give a two finger salute to the western cabal who seek to keep them oppressed, subservient and poor and I hope the western masses do the same - fossil fuels are natures gifts that have lifted developed nations out of the dark ages into the electrified wonders they are today, long may it continue