Indeed, the economic success they enjoyed was made possible by the burning of fossil fuels. Developing countries were starting to industrialize. Just as they were beginning to reap the benefits of fossil fuel production, they were asked to scale back. For developing nations, such scaling back seemed like a punishment for a problem they did not produce. It also seemed like an unfair distribution of economic hardship.
Modern economies run on fossil fuels.
Scaling back means slowing down overall economic growth. Wealthy industrialized nations are in a much better financial position to make these cuts than are developing ones. Developing nations tend to have more immediate concerns, such as outbreaks of infectious disease and feeding their citizens. Derailing their economies to ward off the distant threat of global warming does not always strike them as the wisest option. But while industrialized nations emitted the bulk of greenhouse gases, developing nations were quickly catching up.