The previous post contained an incidental assertion that several developing world nations were "on a fast track to surpassing the West as economic powers". Perhaps not.

China's economy, said the [World} bank, is smaller than it thought.

About 40% smaller.

China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed.

India's economy is also 40% smaller than previously thought. This is significant for the long running discussion of ways for the world to deal with the implications of GHG emissions. Emissions from those large but not so prosperous nations are still growing, but they have less ability to clean up than we thought. We didn't think they had much emissions wiggle room even when we thought they were much more prosperous.

The idea that emissions can somehow be reduced by belt tightening, neatness and hygiene is nonsense. It will take advanced technologies for power generation, and they must be cheap enough for these huge but impoverished nations to adopt.