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Ever since the conversation about cutting CO2 use started it was always accepted that developing countries which have a very low energy use and desperately needed to actually have an energy system to develop would be allowed to increase their use of fossil fuels. But it was also understood that these countries would run parallel paths of renewable energy development and over time (hopefully quickly) retire their fossil fuel use to go to total renewables.
Western countries on the other hand have already fully developed energy systems which are largely fossil fuel based. There target was two fold
1) Become far more efficient in energy use and reduce the impact of fossil fuels. ie better fuel consumption, more efficient industry and homes
2) Move as rapidly as possible to replacing the fossil fuel systems with clean, renewable energy sources. If they have been successful at introducing good efficiency measures then they might get away with having less energy supplies.
That sounds awfully like a plan to simply relocate energy-intensive industry from developed countries to "developing" ones so that they avoid, or at least delay by a few decades, the cost and environmental gains.
Which brings us back to the point that so-called "free" trade is the primary barrier to shifting to clean energy.
If Australian industry had no need to be competitive against developing countries and only had to compete against other developed countries with comparable standards to our own then this whole debate would largely cease to exist.
If a developing country wants to use coal and produce goods for their own use then I'm fine with that. But if they want to export to any developed country then the same environmental and other standards applying in developed countries should be applied to the production of those goods. To do otherwise just harms our own economy and defeats the purpose environmentally.