Bangkok Post: For decades, Asian leaders largely ignored climate change. It's a Western problem, we said. They caused the problem by dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere; let them clean it up. Instead, we Asian leaders focused on reducing poverty by growing our economies.
We were not responsible for the pollution, we argued; so we should not have to pay for it. Yes, Asia's industrialisation was quietly building up toxic stores of carbon, but we were only following the rich world's prescription for...