East Timor president pushes back on environmental criticism

Give our country $100 billion — or stop lecturing us about making money from fossil fuels.
That was the message East Timor President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta had Wednesday for those raising environmental concerns about his nation’s proposal to build a new gas-processing plant.
Ramos-Horta was speaking in Australia after the two countries signed a new defense agreement. He delivered his remarks at the National Press Club in Canberra with humor but also with an edge.
East Timor, an impoverished nation of 1.5 million, is hoping to break a 20-year deadlock with the new Australian government over the development of the Greater Sunrise gas field that lies beneath the seabed separating the two countries.
Australia wants the gas piped to an existing gas hub at its northern city of Darwin. East Timor expects more economic benefit if the gas is piped to its south coast.
Ramos-Horta was visiting Australia in part to try and resolve the dispute. A reporter asked how East Timor could justify the project given the climate impacts.