It’s, indeed, possible to grow rich, go green

For five decades, international environmental meetings have been riven by a north-south divide.
While the rich nations of the global north have led calls to rein in emissions, their less affluent counterparts have largely remained on the sidelines. The Kyoto Protocol was in essence a treaty between the wealthy Group of Seven nations, the former Soviet Union, Australia and New Zealand. Even after the 2015 Paris Agreement brought developing countries into the greenhouse-target club for the first time, emissions from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fell 2.7% in the four years to 2019, while those from lower-income nations grew 7.2%.
The words of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at a 1972 environmental conference have been crucial to fortifying that position. “Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?” she argued.
By that logic, the preaching of richer countries reeks of hypocrisy. Having built their own wealth on the cheap energy provided by coal and oil, they’d seek to deny the same benefits to other countries. With less than a sixth of the world’s population, they’ve racked up
more than half of historical carbon emissions.
Just as they monopolised the world’s resources during their days as imperial overlords, so too have they monopolised the finite capacity of the planet to absorb carbon.
Those debates are as alive now as they were back then. Major developing countries in September branded the European Union’s plans to levy a price on the carbon content of imports “discriminatory.” An equitable outcome wouldn’t see India’s emissions hitting zero until 2075, analysts at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a New Delhi-based think-tank, wrote in September. Whether and when New Delhi announces a net zero target remains one of the biggest unknowns of the upcoming global climate conference.
It’s time to recognise, however, that the logic underpinning this view is falling apart. When Gandhi spoke, fossil fuels were clearly the cheapest way to power economic development — but the price of rival technologies has been falling ever since, while the expenses of continuing an emissions-intensive path rise by the year.
Solar modules in 1975 cost more than $100 per watt; the same amount of power can now be bought for around 20 cents.

—Bloomberg