There are often situations where people benefit from doing something that is later revealed to be very destructive. It's important to recognize advantages that may have arisen from that first mover position, and make sure that later legislation doesn't lock in that advantage. I get it. And the US in particular has fallen far short of this standard, and is in no position to preach. However, my big problem with the US is that we want to deny someone else a ladder while we're still climbing on it, not because we did in the past.
However, this argument has limits. Clearly China doesn't intend to limit themselves to the technologies that existed when the best way to get from London to San Francisco was by coal powered ship and train. Will they also use asbestos insulation? Will they perform surgeries without anesthesia? Will they treat infections with primitive or no antibiotics?
Fortunately, China's leaders are scientists and engineers, and I don't believe for a second that they are unaware of the environmental catastrophe that could result from a stupid energy policy. When they have a drought, they won't lead their state in a prayer for rain. China's leadership is well aware that the survival of their nation depends on getting to clean energy first - and that this may in fact be the best way to become the dominant power of the next century. I think the whole "you used coal in 1850, so now we get to" is more a point of argument to get the west to make concessions (which is a reasonable demand) rather than something they'd actually do.
The technical education of China's unaccountable governing elite has not prevented them from causing the greatest environmental catastrophe in living memory, nor does it guarantee that they will be at all motivated to clean up the mess.
China's leaders may be engineers, but they are also an unaccountable elite whose primary goal is and continues to be their own aggrandizement and enrichment. Who do you think causes environmental damage in the US? Populist governors leading prayer meetings or the technical and economic elites who actually build, own, and operate polluting entities? Mock the U.S. political system all you like, but it contains mechanisms that allowed popular pressure to produce a tremendous environmental turnaround and a raft of effective environmental legislation. That China's political system will do the same is by no means guaranteed.
I'm going to guess that it was my statement about praying for rain that caused you to feel I was mocking the US political system. I actually intended to mock a US politician who mocked the political system. Which wasn't a good idea, I'm a little disappointed with myself for doing that. It's not helpful at all in a discussion, but since it's out there, I may as well explain.
In this specific case, I think there probably is an alliance between this particular politician and the business interests that pollute and who would like to dismantle the political mechanisms you mentioned. My biggest problem with the "prayer for rain" was that it came from someone who tends to mock the US political system (though he was unable to specify the third govt agency he would like to replace, he did reassure us that he didn't want to eliminate the EPA, he just wanted it "rebuilt", and I can only imagine who he'd put on that panel). He also rejected the conclusions of the vast majority of the scientific community about what might be causing and/or exacerbating chronic droughts.
However, this argument has limits. Clearly China doesn't intend to limit themselves to the technologies that existed when the best way to get from London to San Francisco was by coal powered ship and train. Will they also use asbestos insulation? Will they perform surgeries without anesthesia? Will they treat infections with primitive or no antibiotics?
Fortunately, China's leaders are scientists and engineers, and I don't believe for a second that they are unaware of the environmental catastrophe that could result from a stupid energy policy. When they have a drought, they won't lead their state in a prayer for rain. China's leadership is well aware that the survival of their nation depends on getting to clean energy first - and that this may in fact be the best way to become the dominant power of the next century. I think the whole "you used coal in 1850, so now we get to" is more a point of argument to get the west to make concessions (which is a reasonable demand) rather than something they'd actually do.