alt Hacker News> Even if these countries are a smaller part of the climate affecting processes, any forward motion is good at this point
China, The US, and India all turned down invites despite generating 34%, 12%, and 7.6% of global emissions respectively [0]
If the world's 3 largest polluters (even if two of them are heavily investing in GreenTech) who represent ~54% of global emissions are not interested in the conversation, it's all for naught.
None of the attendees are in the position to pressure the big 3 polluters. And it doesn't matter - the larger countries know they can eat the cost of climate change. It's the poorer or smaller countries that face the brunt of the impact.
And it's only going to get worse. India turned down hosting COP33 in 2028 [1] because India is deciding to to double down on coal [2] as the Iran Crisis has shown China's bet on Coal Gasification that began during the Iraq War [3] was correct.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/india-withdraws-b...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-05/india-mul...
[3] - https://usea.org/sites/default/files/022011_Coal-to-oil,%20g...
It is beyond shameful how Westerners misallocate the blame for pollution, using misleading statistics. India has ~17% of the world's population. That it only produces 7% of global emissions means it is contributing far, far, far less than whatever country you possibly come from in relative terms, so at that point you are besmirching it solely for the crime of having a larger population than your country.
China, while having a disproportionate share of the pollution relative to its population, only has that pollution because the West offshored almost the entirety of its manufacturing capacity to China. Is China really at fault for pollution caused creating goods for the West? If China shuts down all export manufacturing overnight, and the West is forced to resume manufacturing for itself, resulting in ~the same global emissions, is that what's necessary to stop blaming China even though there's no shift in demand for manufactured goods or total pollution? Moreover, China is investing more seriously into non-fossil-fuel energy than any country in the West, by far. If you let the West resume its own manufacturing, you would actually end up with higher total emissions, because the West does not take this subject seriously at all.