Historically, the richer you were, the more CO2 you would emit, and it was mostly rich countries that were responsible for the world’s carbon emissions. That changed in the second half of the 20th century when booming economies started to emerge. The rise of China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa has been a human triumph. It has alleviated massive amounts of poverty and suffering. But it has been powered by fossil fuels and added hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. At the same time, many richer countries have started to reduce their emissions, while
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