Because most CO2 emissions are from industry, not humans, per capita statistics mean very little (especially since these industries ship their products globally). Per capita statistics are championed by industry because they shift blame to citizens and paint the false picture that citizens are entirely responsible for the nation's output.

This means it is more effective to use a metric like CO2 emitted per $1000 GDP because it reflects how polluting industry is in each country. See link attached and sort. It is also important to remember China and India (especially) are far from industrializing, and Western nations' emissions are dropping (they peaked 10-15 yrs ago).

In reality, some combination of CO2/capita and CO2/$1000GDP is the most effective for determining how polluting a country is.

Environmental policy is dictated at a national level. And this is why I put pressure on the Chinese state (again, NOT the people). A bigger portion of their emissions are caused by industry than in most countries). The Chinese state and only the Chinese state has the ability to reduce industrial emissions in their country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...