Much has been made about the recent G8 summits and the unwillingness of developing countries to join environmental agendas. It may not seem so important to include these developing economies in a climate control plan. Given current statistics on energy use and pollution creation where the US and other developed countries top the list, it stands to reason that what the developing world is doing isn’t that important. However, there are several key factors that are not being considered that make the developing countries of the world a very important part of any discussion of global climate change.

First, as we’re seeing now in the US, once you have an established method of power generation, it becomes more difficult to change it. The life cycle of a power plant is very long and much of this life cycle is needed to recover development costs. This means that the power plants being developed today in developing countries to meet their growing electricity needs will still be in use 25 years from now. It is much easier to start producing clean energy than to transfer it after the fact. If developing countries continue to use dirty power generation to meet current demand, they will all pay the price in the long run.

The second reason why we should be concerned about power generation in developing countries is the size of the population in many of these countries. As countries like India and China begin to use more energy per capita and approach the levels of more developed countries, there will be a huge demand for electricity generation due to the huge size of their populations. If dirty power generation methods are allowed to continue to meet this demand, they will eventually create a huge pollution problem, the effects of which will be felt around the world.

If allowed to continue unchecked, the increase in dirty power generation in the developing world will offset any reduction in pollution made in developed countries. The world cannot afford to continue producing pollution at current levels, the goal of any environmental plan is to reduce global emissions. So these developing countries are a huge threat to any environmental program that is really trying to fix the problem. This is not to say that the developed countries of the world should not reduce their emissions if the developing countries do not agree too. Any effort to reduce emissions is better than none. However, it is important to get the support of developing countries to stop global climate change. Without your help, nothing we do can really stop the problem, it will only delay it.