Well it’s a _global_ problem. The US isn’t the only party here. Emissions in the US have been going down and in India and China they’ve been going up[1] like crazy. And yet the US is constantly harangued about reducing emissions and concerns about India and China are hand waved away.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_fossil_carbon_dio...
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...
1. There’s 3x as many people in China as the US but the US emits about 2x as much per capita as China (and decreasing!). So it isn’t that far off in per capita terms. What will the talking point be once that changes?
2. When it comes to pollution it absolutely does matter who the largest overall polluter is. If the world were two countries and one was responsible for 90% of carbon emissions and the other was responsible for 10% at a higher per capita rate, who would it make more sense to go after first?
This is really where climate alarmists lose me. Too many contradictory policies. Harass the US, who has both a declining birth rate and declining CO2 emissions while giving a pass to other countries who are exploding in population and total emissions. And don’t even get me started on how we in the west are told to have fewer children but are simultaneously told that we must import enormous numbers of third world immigrants, who by the way will have their carbon footprint boosted dramatically.
Both as the effect is global, and if the differential is 2:1 both have much room for improvement. Though you must not conveniently forget that much of China's emissions stem from being the world's manufacturer. A hell of a lot of European and US emissions have been globalised to China, rather simply a billion Chinese adopting a Texan lifestyle. I'd be interested to see per capita global emissions after someone accounted for globalisation of manufacturing and services, and brought all those imports back home, emissions wise.
Yet even after outsourcing all that heavy industry and manufacturing, the US has, by far, the worst per capita emissions on the planet. It is completely beyond my understanding when numbers sometimes come up on HN, how they are able to use so much for a family. The lifestyle isn't 2x UK, France or Germany. Not just CO2, but water use too. It beggars belief to be so wasteful for so little gain.
Everyone should be doing more, whether tiny or the largest. It really should be a race to the bottom - for national, and global pride.
I'd encourage you to harass my country all you like - decidedly mid tier on climate action and emissions, precisely because they are mid tier on a globe that is not doing nearly enough. Complaining it's worse elsewhere just reeks of trying to evade or ignore the issue.