Climate Change Debate: China and India say, "We wanna smoke too!"

Today's NY Times reports on the UN's daylong climate change summit and though more sophisticated than my crude title implies, China, India and other developing nations are essentially arguing that despite knowledge gained since the West "smoked"(grew by burning fossil fuels) they want the right to "smoke" too because the West did.

I did a little research and, though still in their nascent stages, both China's and India's governments have embarked on anti-smoking(cigarettes) campaigns. I assume they are doing this because they accept the science that smoking is bad for human health.

Yet, even though they seem to equally accept the science on climate change they want the right to "smoke" for growth.

This by no means is meant to absolve the West from their responsibility to aggressively pursue real cuts in CO2 emission regardless of what China and India's stance is.. I'm merely pointing out the dichotomy.