But the sins of out grandgrandpas haven't vanished, and still will need to be paid.

That's less an issue than the new emissions going forward from Asia and Africa.

We can't very well tell them to stay poor. They're going to increase their energy usage and they're right to do so.

Hopefully renewables and EVs are competitive enough to reduce the impact of the rest of the world developing to Western levels. Which they may well, thanks to China and Elon Musk's Tesla for jump starting that transition.