Future Global Carbon Emissions Will be Driven by the Developing World
For a variety of reasons, rich countries are more easily able to cut per capita carbon emissions. These include both better access to cleaner energy sources and the fact it is more politically feasible to cut emissions in a rich country than in a poor country. In poor and middle-income countries, voters and residents tend to live closer to subsistence levels and the cost of cutting emissions could be the difference between a steady food supply and malnutrition. It could mean a real cut to the availability of reliable medical services.