My Take | Behind carbon neutrality lies rich countries’ hypocrisy
- Western critics have picked on China’s role in lending and developing infrastructure projects needed for economic growth in Africa – from setting debt traps to practising neo-imperialism – but have offered few alternatives. They should help out or shut up
The developed world got rich on the back of fossil fuels. Now, it wants everyone else to go by its environmental standards when many other countries are still mired in poverty and underdevelopment.
China’s rapid reduction in poverty went hand in hand with a long period of sustained economic growth. A heavy environmental price was paid for this achievement as the country is now the world’s worst carbon emitter.
But Beijing has pledged carbon neutrality by 2060, only a decade after the deadline set by the European Union. The ruling Communist Party has obviously done the maths and considers it feasible. Not so with most other developing countries, in central Asia and Africa.
This month, seven European countries joined the rest of the EU and the United States to halt support for fossil fuel-intensive projects abroad. This amounts to a blanket ban on funding for energy infrastructure projects that are desperately needed in low-income countries to achieve and sustain economic expansion.
A commentary in Nature, the research journal, points out that most of those countries still rely on coal, gas and oil. “This blanket ban will entrench poverty in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, but do little to reduce the world’s carbon emissions,” it said.