>and their growth has declined to below 5% this year.

So they're still growing, then.

And presumably southern China is still tropical and in desperate need of air conditioning in summer. In fact it's getting worse due to climate change.

They also need heat in the winter. I’ve never been so cold in my life actually, people really take indoor heating for granted.

Because rural or urban, once people have access to enough energy to rise out of grinding poverty, they tend not to want to return to a precarious, labor-intensive subsistence lifestyle.

Especially when their individual share of the resulting pollution is small compared to the degree to which it’s improved their lives.

“Declined” growth of 5% this year still means that things there are 5% bigger than they were last year.

Are you suggesting they’re polluting for the hell of it?