Given China's booming economy - and relative increase of wealth - are the environmental costs of development worth it? Why or why not?

Question

Given China's booming economy - and relative increase of wealth - are the environmental costs of development worth it? Why or why not?

Answer 1

This has been a point of contention for some time now. Given China's massive population - over a billion citizens! - and the swift rate of industrialization, the carbon footprint of the country is understandably massive. CO2 emissions per capita in China is much smaller than that of the United States, but the fact remains the same that China's carbon footprint is bigger than the next few countries combined.

However, something to note is that China is essentially doing the same thing the global north spent the better part of the 19th and 20th centuries doing. Countries like the United Kingdom and the United States had massive CO2 emissions during these times (and still do), off the same general techniques employed by China (and India) today. Do countries like this really have the right to criticize the ones doing exactly what they did to "get ahead"?

Still, this is a difficult question to answer. While countries in the global north may need to look inward and realize that they're the pot calling the kettle black, it is hard to understate the massive environmental impact of China's industrialization.