[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

I offer a worked example, the UK climate change act - which is barking madness at several £tn to implement, but for which the author got put into the House of Lords.

I'm not familiar with that act, but 1) These are politicians we're talking about, no? and 2) Recall what I wrote earlier about everyone wanting to skim off a bit for themselves. Of course, if you let a certain type of politician at things, they can spend endless amounts of money while achieving negative results - see for just one instance the US War on Drugs.

1) how is forcing them to use unreliable and expensive energy supposed to make them better off.

I think "unreliable and expensive" is a pretty good description of the current fossil fueled power systems of most 3rd world countries. First off, no one is forcing them to use energy at all. If they want to use energy, it is, in the current state of things, probably cheaper* and certainly more reliable to use renewables. Consider phones as a parallel case: the 3d world isn't stringing millions of miles of copper wire (or even fiber) to provide telephone service.

*Note that renewable is now cheaper than fossil in Australia, per this: Renewable energy now cheaper than new fossil fuels in Australia | Bloomberg New Energy Finance

could you detail the effects hitting them now, due to CAGW (note the C).

I don't believe I said that the negative effects the 3rd world is now experiencing are due to climate change. They are due to the adoption (often forced) of western lifestyles, urbanization, etc.

Actually a third - could you indicate the negatives of what has happened in the 20th century in terms of climate so far ?

I suppose I could, if I wanted to do a bit of research, but that'd be entirely missing the point. It'd be like the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building complaining, as he passes the 20th floor, that the wind is mussing up his hair a bit.