TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Reihan Salam points out something that’s obvious but is rarely mentioned in the little discussion we have about global warming—the hardest challenge is in the developing world:

Canada has 35 million people. Africa has just over 1 billion. But rather remarkably, Canada consumes about as much energy as all of Africa, according to Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of Power Hungry, a provocative look at the global energy industry. As African economies grow, however, it is a safe bet that African energy consumption will grow with it, just as energy consumption has increased in China and India and around the world as hundreds of millions have escaped poverty. And that is the key challenge facing those who hope to do something about carbon emissions, including President Obama.

The developed world may be able to wrestle its carbon output within reasonable bounds (although that will come with great sacrifice, too), but doing so in the developing world will be a herculean task. But what’s worse, is it seems hardly moral to force people in the developing world, who are just now on the precipice of enjoying a greater standard of living, to do without the benefits that fossil fuels bring to their lives. The developed world has burned its way to prosperity, to the point where it can decide to control its carbon output, but much of the developing world hasn’t. How is it that the wealthy West can ask people who never enjoyed the same privileges to give up their right to them?

Global warming is often portrayed as a problem that can be solved with relatively pain-free solutions—increase gas-mileage requirements for car-makers, use public funding to accelerate development of renewable and “clean” energy technologies—but that conveniently ignores the scale of the problem, and the moral difficulties of doing so.