You can say this but no nation as a whole has the balls. That's the power of fighting off an invasion from a rich country. I can lose ten for each one of yours and you will lose hope first.
To say nothing of the fact that the first American soldier who dies to stop climate change will cause, by his death, the crucifixion of your "liberal tree huggers". Your internal politics will fracture and break you. You are too weak for this.
And if you're European, your populace doesn't have the appetite to use guns and bombs to stop climate change anyway.
There's no need for invasion or occupation, bombing is enough - look at per capita carbon footprint of Afghanistan or Somalia. And that can be done "cleanly" with drones, no risk for the attacking nation.
Other than that, some parts of American / Western population would be gladly sold on "the overpopulated non-whites are destroying the world by over-consumption and need to be kept in check" - without realizing the irony of "over-consumption" and without seeing the parallels between "overpopulation" rhetoric and eugenics of old.
Moreover eternal war is more money for the capitalists, while there's little profit in saving the world peacefully. And you know who truly rules the West.
So hopefully we can all agree on stuff. I'm not sure it's all that likely.
EDIT: also if you're a "leader of a developing nation", chances are you're going to see effects of climate change, like drought and famine, way sooner than the rich parts of the world. And if you get no aid because you refuse to cooperate ... you know. Maybe your replacement that got to power after you got hanged by an angry mob will do more solar panels or whatever.
The developed world can't afford it. Both those countries were fucked already. And the Afghanistan war barely has support - despite sheltering someone who performed the most significant terrorist attack on America in decades, perhaps centuries. If you want to stop Brazil or China or India from industrializing you're in for it. It's not going to work. It won't work there and it won't work in Pakistan or Indonesia. And it won't work in Nigeria. And it won't work in Argentina.
You just can't do it.
And the benefits of industrialization are huge. Especially now before we put carbon caps in because everyone knows you get grandfathered in.
When the famines come, you'll be expected to buy food. And the West will be expected to sell it. Because what are you going to do, say "No aid because you didn't play along"? You'll get absolutely mulched in your Parliaments and your Congresses.
To say nothing of what will happen, which is that China will sell them food because it is unlikely everyone gets a drought at the same time. And then you will have committed a geopolitical own goal.
You can force a lot of things. A lot of things. But China put the cat among the pigeons. Everyone knows that burning hella fossil really fast is optimal, because sooner or later the West is gonna ask for some deals. And since we'll wipe the slate clean of emissions then, it is optimal to burn now. Burn everything because the jubilee will come.
It's so weird, in movies there's always the villain going out of their way trying to "destroy the world" and it seems so far fetched - and now I'm talking to one.
Hahaha! I am flattered. But, like all the villains in the movies, I don't see myself as the bad guy. You're trying to screw me out of my share while clearly not contributing your share, and I have access to a slow WMD you can't stop. That's just bad negotiating on your part.
You can:
1. Try to disarm me, but you are unable.
2. Try to not screw me, and it'll be fine.
3. Do your bit, and it'll be fine.
Listen, what that will look like is that the US+Europe has to reduce carbon emissions some 75% for a few decades and India+Brazil+developing_nations get to boost theirs to 250% for a few decades. Then we will all have emitted the same carbon into the atmosphere and the playing field is leveled. Fair. Equitable. Unachievable only because you don't want to be fair or equitable.
