ABSTRACT
Nobel Laureate Al Gore reminded us that the United States and China are the two major causes of global climate change in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (10 December 2007, Oslo). The United States warns us China will be the biggest polluter of the twenty-first century, but China argues it has to catch up with the West and is, in absolute terms, decades behind in polluting. So we have a political deadlock. The real difference is that the United States has become a nation dependent on fossil fuel while China still has an opportunity to redirect its development.
