China & The Greenhouse Effect

It looks like China's position on global warming is shifting a bit. A couple speeches have trickled out recently (here and here) indicating the gravity of the issue is starting to be talked about within the country. But China Daily's own reporter's article about the need to penalize foreign firms reminded me of how ludicrous China's positions still can be. The article itself somehow blames foreign companies for the fact that China's government hasn't cared about the environment for years (never mind the fact that Exxon can pollute far more at a Texas refinery than say one on Antwerp; China's standards might not so different from America's in some places). There was a similar argument when they fought for 'developing' status in the Kyoto agreement. Just because your government failed to implement capitalism sooner and you are therefore years behind in development, doesn't mean you should get a free pass now. If anything, China is greatly benefiting from the know-how from advanced economies. If the Chinese government wanted to, they could have avoided the mistakes made by other countries and had a cleaner environment from the start. Now China has embedded dirty technology interest groups that will fight the transition to clean tech, much like what we see playing out in US.