Source: US Congressional Research Service, 2005

One only has to look at disparities in standards of living among the top 10 per capita emitters for the complete picture. China and India, in comparison to the leading per capita polluters, are the poorest. There is an obvious link between past pollution ("stock" of emissions), present pollution ("flow" of emissions) and economic well being of people. In the absence of greener technologies and alternative development paradigms, the unfortunate implication of the per capita emissions column of the above table is that polluters grow economically and provide better for their populations in material terms. Western colonial empires and industrial advancement rest on the ugly reality of massive plunder not only of the inhabitants of the "Third World" but also of the planet Earth.

The essence of the Bush administration's repudiation of the present climate change regime is that it imperils US industry and jobs, which are facing tough competition from China and India. More broadly, Washington's fear is that the prosperity gap that exists in favor of the leading Western per capita emitters will be reduced if China and India are "let off the hook" on carbon emissions.

As long as attaining and maintaining "modernization" through industries is the main currency of so-called "progress", the US and European Union (EU)wish to retain their lead over the catch-up players, China and India. At the 2007 Bali conference on climate change, Washington threatened to unleash "green tariffs" or trade sanctions on developing countries for failing to meet designated carbon cuts. The very linkage between trade and environmental or labor standards reveals the politics behind scapegoating China and India, which are long-term challengers of American world supremacy.

The Bush administration's innuendos against China and India on the issues of food prices are also misleading. Indians and Chinese are not high per capita consumers of grains and cereals. Food consumption statistics clearly demonstrate that Western people account for the highest rates of nutrition and calorific intake in the world. Restrictions on food exports in India, Vietnam and Brazil are not meant to pacify the swelling middle-class bases of these emerging economies but to provide a safety net for the mass of the poor in these countries. Bush's contention that the protective measures are responses to growing middle-class demands for nutrition is completely misplaced.

Studies also show that wastage of food is most rampant in advanced industrial countries of the West. According to researchers at the University of Arizona, 40-50% of edible food in the US never gets eaten. Every year, US$43 billion worth of edible food is estimated to be thrown away in the country known better for its gas-guzzling habits. A complex phenomenon, wastage of food is not only a sore spot in a phase of escalating grain and pulse prices but also associated with greenhouse gas emissions.

In Britain, environmental activists are campaigning that reducing food wastage could curtail at least fifteen million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per annum. Steeped in a consumerism described by economist J K Galbraith as a "culture of contentment", Western people and governments rarely self-introspect while pontificating on China and India as monstrous food and energy consumers.

It is now well-established that there is a relationship between fuel market inflation and food shortages. The per-unit production cost of food grains has risen globally because of the increased input costs of oil, petrol, diesel, kerosene and fertilizers. To what extent is American destabilization of the Middle East, especially the crippling war on Iraq, a contributor to the stratospheric levitation of oil prices? How much has US investment in bio-fuels like ethanol affected food supplies? These important questions are being swept under the carpet in Washington, which has found the alibi of ascribing every major global problem to the doorsteps of China and India.

When economic recession, soaring fuel costs, spiraling food prices, and deteriorating environmental indices occur together like a package of woes, one can expect a blame game in which every country will defend its own innocence vis-a-vis the alleged culpability of others. As shortages, conflicts and crises seem to congregate like a collective plague, there is a natural tendency to search for culprits.

This is especially true of the United States, which has a history of thriving on the construction of mean-spirited and selfish enemies against which American exceptionalism is contrasted. Psychologist Sam Keen observed famously about the end of the Cold War that "we [Americans] were getting desperate in our search for a new enemy".

The erosion of the Soviet challenge opened up a fascinating melange of new scapegoats in Washington, ranging from Japan, the "axis of evil" states, and "Islamofascism" to the crystallizing new consensus around China and India being the causes of plagues. The shift of emphasis to China and India as the new "hit me" toys in Washington is a surface-level manifestation of the realization in American strategic circles that the new competitors of the longue duree come from Asia.

Sadly for humanity, such politicization of survival needs like food, fuel and liveable temperatures continues to divert focus away from the real "inconvenient truths" that Al Gore had the courage to unmask as an American.

Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

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