The thing is, as Bob points out, India and China are putting economic growth (i.e. getting their people out of extreme poverty) first. Hard to blame them for that. Meanwhile, they are still working hard to keep their carbon intensity ‘relatively’ low by focusing a ton on clean energy. Is it enough? Personally, I don’t think so, and I think they are actually shooting themselves in the foot right now — bullet is halfway there. That said, again, it’s hard to justify saying they are ‘wrong’ for doing the best they can at the moment to pull billions of people out of poverty. And, easy to see why they continuously try to demand that the Western world do more to lower its insanely high carbon intensity.

It’s a complicated game, and I personally think everyone (well, most countries) are demanding too much of others before they clean up their act. reminds me of the “Prisoner’s dilemma”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

But it’s very hard to say what kind of responsibility those in China and India feel for bringing their people out of poverty as fast as possible.

China has put economic growth ahead of environmental concerns for the most part, but they are not in denial about what they are doing. China is also pushing forward with lots of hydro, wind, and now solar. It seems like the felt the need to first create a vibrant economy and then start cleaning up their waste stream.