Let me ask you this: If in scenario A the US (or EU) uses X billion dollars to lower pollution by tweaking an already high tech industry or in scenario B uses the same amount of money helping China getting their older technologies upgraded, which scenario do you think lowers the pollution the most?
If I could donate money and remove X amount of CO2 pollution from the US or X+10% from China with the same amount I would not care at all about national borders. Pollution doesn't. Nationalism does. Technology transfer for greener technology at a discount would help a lot more than trying to get some newer SUVs on the road in the States.
Btw. stating that China is "increasingly going in the opposite direction" is not fairly stating the situation. China is doing a lot better than most in many areas if you compare apples to apples. The main drive for the increase is the increase of people having access to something akin to what we have (smartphones, cars, etc). That a population being lifted out of poverty is polluting more than earlier isn't a surprise. They pollut more because they need more powerplants, more cars are on the road, etc. Not because the don't try to build efficient powerplants and don't try to tax old dirty cars.
If I could donate money and remove X amount of CO2 pollution from the US or X+10% from China with the same amount I would not care at all about national borders. Pollution doesn't. Nationalism does. Technology transfer for greener technology at a discount would help a lot more than trying to get some newer SUVs on the road in the States.
Btw. stating that China is "increasingly going in the opposite direction" is not fairly stating the situation. China is doing a lot better than most in many areas if you compare apples to apples. The main drive for the increase is the increase of people having access to something akin to what we have (smartphones, cars, etc). That a population being lifted out of poverty is polluting more than earlier isn't a surprise. They pollut more because they need more powerplants, more cars are on the road, etc. Not because the don't try to build efficient powerplants and don't try to tax old dirty cars.