Sir, – Mike Moran (Letters, November 15th) rightly highlights China, India and Russia as major culprits in global emissions but mistakenly infers they are somewhat decoupled from western capitalism. History shows that when the neoliberal orthodoxy was unleashed by Reagan and Thatcher, with the resulting deregulation and race to the bottom, most of the West’s manufacturing was subcontracted to China and India. The subsequent onset of rabid credit-fuelled consumerism, again driven by Wall Street and other markets, accelerated the industrialisation of developing countries to feed this consumption.
Russia until recently provided significant energy supplies for this industrial growth.
So while most would agree that the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) emissions need to be dealt with, curbing the excesses of capitalism would significantly help. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
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