Both the NYT and NPR forget to mention this fact in their discussion of efforts to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. This is important because NPR told listeners that China did not have to agree to just limit emissions, but to actually reduce them. This implies that the Chinese must be forever bound to emitting less greenhouse gas per person than people living in the United States.
The reason why NPR thinks that they should be restricted in this way is that China did not contribute as much to the problem of global warming as the United States. It would have been helpful if NPR explained its position more clearly to listeners.
NPR also featured a brief mention of one of the low-lying Pacific islands that could be flooded by a modest rise in ocean levels. While this would be one projected result of global warming, the destruction of these sparsely populated islands would be a less serious human tragedy than the impact of increased flooding in densely populated low-lying coastal areas of Asia. The latter might have been a better focus for noting the harm from global warming.
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