Oh yes — how dare they.
How dare a country try to make life better for its own citizens?
How dare it attempt to lift millions out of grinding poverty?
How dare it develop its domestic resources and build industries while parts of the developed world indulge in a downward spiral of collective carbon hysteria?
It is remarkable how selective moral outrage tends to be.
When a developing nation expands energy production to stabilize its grid, power factories, and provide reliable electricity to people who have known little of it, the commentary from comfortable Western capitals is swift and indignant. The tone suggests betrayal — as if industrialization were a moral crime rather than the historical foundation of every prosperous society currently lecturing others.
But if outrage must be expressed, at least aim it proportionally.
There is a far more obvious target.
China.
One country alone accounts for more than half of global coal consumption. Not a large share. Not a leading share. More than half. China burns more coal every year than the rest of the world combined.
Read that again if necessary.
India? Significant, yes. In relative terms, a heavyweight among emerging economies when it comes to coal. But in the global ledger, India occupies a fraction of the total pie. Compared to China’s scale, it is operating in a different weight class altogether.
And yet much of the performative fury in Western discourse fixates on smaller players — countries whose primary objective is domestic development, not geopolitical dominance.
Why?
Because outrage follows incentives.
It is easier to shame democracies that are sensitive to international opinion. Easier to pressure governments that tolerate protest. Easier to generate headlines targeting states that still engage with Western media narratives.
If one truly believes coal combustion is the defining moral crisis of our time, then consistency would demand a rather obvious course of action.
Book a flight to Beijing.
Head to the Great Hall of the People.
Glue yourself to the doors.
Deliver the speech.
Expose the scale of the coal burn where it actually matters.
One suspects the reception would be… instructive.
This is a defense of intellectual honesty.
Energy consumption correlates strongly with economic development. Every industrialized nation climbed that ladder using dense, reliable energy sources. Now, having secured prosperity, some attempt to pull the ladder up while chastising those still ascending it.
Meanwhile, the largest emitter and consumer continues expanding coal capacity at scale, with far less theatrical hand-wringing from the global activist class.
If the goal is emissions reduction, strategy should follow arithmetic. If the goal is moral signaling, then selective indignation makes perfect sense.
But those are not the same project.
So before directing outrage at nations trying to electrify villages and power manufacturing, take a hard look at the global distribution of coal consumption.
If you are serious, you know where the real leverage lies.
If you are not, then perhaps the outrage was never about coal in the first place.