Hamish McRae: So how do we persuade China to change?

We need to be honest about our own failures of lifestyle - and we need to tackle those failures

The most significant part of the debate about what might be done to tackle the gigantic issue of climate change is the focus on China and India. That the debate should now be focussed on the economic consequences of global warming is tremendously welcome. Hard economics is generally a more potent driver of change than soft politics. We should all thank Sir Nicholas Stern for that. If it turns out that the UK can have some influence then that is all to the good.

The debate is sharpened by the fact that the UK itself is insignificant as a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions: less than 2 per cent of the world total. That compares with more than 20 per cent by the US, nearly 15 per cent by China, and between 5 and 6 per cent by both Russia and India. China's output is rising particularly fast, given its growth of about 10 per cent a year and given its heavy reliance on coal as a source of energy. India's contribution is rising swiftly too.

To point that out is not to say that what the UK does is insignificant. Statistically it is insignificant in the sense that were the entire British economy to be wiped from the planet, the growth from China would replace our emissions within a couple of years. But the more the advanced economies can demonstrate that they can sustain pleasant and decent lifestyles and still reduce their impact on the planet's resources, the more influence they will have on countries that aspire to the goodies of the rich world.

We live in a world, for better or worse, where western brands have a huge global influence. Go to China and you see the names of Nike and BMW everywhere. We may have only limited political influence with the Chinese government, if we have any at all. But we - and I mean the West in general rather than just Britain - do have clout when it comes to consumers and lifestyles. So it does matter that we should be as "green" as we can reasonably manage to be.

As it happens I was in Beijing last weekend for a conference about lifestyles. It is impossible not to be stunned by the scale of the economic growth that is evident in China: areas that I remembered three years ago as mostly low-rise, with just a sprinkling of tower blocks, are now full of shiny office towers and luxury apartment buildings. You are looking not just at the greatest economic boom on the planet at the moment; it is the greatest boom our human species has ever known.

I find it thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. Thrilling that millions of people, hundreds of millions, are enjoying the benefits of economic growth that had been denied to them; but terrifying that this will impose such a burden on both the local environment and on global resources. You notice the local environmental impact in the air quality. Beijing is surrounded by hills and the trapped air collects the pollutants. The grey pall of muck catches you in the back of the throat.

Of course if this is unpleasant for the brief visitor, it is far more so for the millions of residents. At both a commercial and an official level there is great concern. A country with a rapidly ageing population is bound to be concerned about the health impact of pollution. The conference focussed on what health clubs might be able to do to contribute towards improved public well-being. If they cannot do anything about the air at least they work on people's general health so that they are better able to cope with all the stresses of city life.

The fundamental point here is that it is not reasonable for the West to try to dissuade countries with much lower living standards from seeking to achieve the lifestyles we enjoy. This point has been made many times in the past few days and needs to be made again. Even if the rich world were to try and push this hypocrisy, we would not be listened to. So that is that.

On the other hand, we can both improve our own performance and point to our own mistakes.

Our mistakes are not just about our treatment of the environment. The more sensitive high-income countries are making some progress on that score. On the particular issue of air quality, Los Angeles had similar conditions in the 1960s to Beijing now. That has been tackled. London has cleaned up its act, as have other European cities. On the more general issue of curbing carbon emissions, European nations have at least made a start, though we have a huge way to go.

There are other issues of public health where we have hardly begun. We have tackled smoking and that is encouraging. But the diet of the average US citizen is much less healthy than that of the average southern European. The British diet now is arguably less healthy than it was during wartime rationing. We are surprised that obesity has become a huge problem but it is a disturbing illustration that greater wealth does not necessarily bring greater well-being.

People in China, India and elsewhere in the fast-growing but still quite poor world can see all this. But they are also confronted by the lure of western culture. Anyone who thinks that China has embraced the religion of consumerism rather too vigorously should remember how Britons celebrated in the 1950s when ordinary families we able to get their first car, buy a washing machine and go on a foreign holiday.

So how can we realistically help China and India sustain their growth but also leave a lighter footprint on the planet?

Lecturing is useless and actually rather insulting. Beating ourselves over the head with higher "green" taxes may make some of us feel better in a masochistic way. There is a surely a case for increasing tax on things we don't want, such as wasting energy, and cutting tax on things we do, such as work. But we should be aware that the hair-shirt approach won't play in China. And they matter much, much more than we do.

Transferring "green" technology? Sure, maybe that will help a bit but actually China and India are perfectly capable of developing their own technologies and we may well find ourselves buying green technologies from them in another 10 years' time. For example, I learnt over the weekend that China is becoming one of the largest producers of solar panels.

Surely our most powerful lever is the power of our culture. We, in Europe but perhaps more in the US, have created a lifestyle to which the rest of the world aspires. But there are huge downsides to that lifestyle, of which the environmental burden is one, a tremendously important one, but only one.

So we need to be honest about our own failures of lifestyle. We need to tackle those failures. We need, in short, to set a better example. Hectoring won't work; example might.