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I am bit confused by the use of Indirect questions in the sentence. Moreover, it is being very difficult for me to use backshift method for interrogatives.
In the given sentence, please tell me if the word order used is correct or not. And in the end, use of direct interrogative is correct or not.

  1. I want to know who is the subject of global warming and climate change whether developed or the developing countries?
  2. I want to know who is the subject of global warming and climate change. Are the rich or the poor?

finally, do we use question mark with "I want to know .............."?

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Who is the subject should be instead who the subject is if there is an indirect question. In other words, put the conjugated be form after the subject in indirect questions. If the subject here is the full the subject of global warming and climate change, then it may be better actually to move the is all the way to after this full length subject: I want to know who the subject of global warming and climate change is ...

... climate change whether developed or the developing countries? needs work to become correct: ... climate change, whether in developed or developing countries. Basically, there needs to be a comma after climate change, the two complements of whether need to have the same form (both using the article the, or neither using the), the word in needs to be added after whether, and there should not be a question mark since the question is indirect.

Finally, Are the rich or the poor? needs some work as well to be fully clear. One option is to use the singular is instead of the plural are, which follows from the idea that there is an implied dichotomy in your question, where only one option is possible as the answer. In this approach, the result could be Is it the rich or the poor?. If the word it is undesirable here, the word subject could be used in its place: Is the subject the rich or the poor?. Another approach is to make it clearer that two options are being contrasted. One way to do this is to separate the options into individual sentences: Are the rich? Or are the poor?.

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    No, the verb has to be are. Consider: "The rich are different". "The rich" is a plural noun. (Unless you make a dummy it the subject, as in your suggestion. Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 10:21
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    I have updated my answer to be more encompassing of different solutions.
    – Michael
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 10:39
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    @Umer -- Yes, that sounds fine. Another way would be to move the is all the way to the end: "who the subject of global warming and climate change is".
    – Michael
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 10:40
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    Yes, "I want to know" is a good way to introduce an indirect question. There are some other ways too, such as "I would like to know", "I was wondering", and "I have wondered". Hopefully my answer was of help. Naturally I was not able to cover all possible solutions or considerations in this one answer, hence the small argument in the comments section. I tried to update my answer accordingly since it helps to have different perspectives.
    – Michael
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 10:58
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    Sir, I am always baffled by indirect interrogatives. I think it is a tricky part for the non-native speaker.
    – Umer Malik
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 11:08

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