My phrasing likely could have been more clear. China and India cannot curtail emissions without reducing energy availability and increasing costs to their population. This has direct and immediate impact on quality of life and human development within their borders. It is actually rather hypocritical for the developed world, which has benefitted from years of development on the back of low cost energy, to push for emissions reductions from countries that have decades of development to undergo.

To be clear, there are intermediate actions they could and should take, such as phase out of coal in favor of natural gas.