People don't want to feel pain, pure and simple. Everyone want's someone else to feel the pain, not themselves. China and India blew off Bush when he was president and have blown off Obama now that he is president. The cheapest way to their prosperity is fossil fuels, it worked for us so they believe they have the right to do the same. We are put in the ackward position of selling "Do what I say, not what I did", that doesn't fly.
Poor countries want the rich to pay their way, they want someone else to feel their pain. Rich countries don't want to feel their own pain, let alone someone elses.
The biggest mistake people make it assuming others will sacrifice their own self interest. Self interest is not some unquantifiable problem decades away, it's prosperity now. The peasants in rural China aren't rioting for a better environment, they are rioting for their piece of the economic pie. That is the voice China will listen too.
All things eventually converge to the bottom line. Every effort should be made to make green energy the low cost alternative or the third world will continue down the same road we traveled.
The good news is the more prosperous China and India become, the more they will be able to afford green alternatives.
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