China is also the world's leading producer of solar cells (over 70%) and the world's leading user of solar power (about 33% of global solar power).

China is also, by far, the leading producer and user of electric cars with almost half of the production and sales (more electric cars are sold in china than western europe + US combined). Half of all EV's in the world are driving around in China.

Further, chinese people use a fraction of the electricity that north americans do. Canada: 14,600 kWh/yr, USA: 12,150 kWh/yr, China: 5,300 kWh/yr.

In terms of CO2 emissions, it's the same story: USA: 17.6T/yr, Canada: 15.7T/yr, China: 6.4T/yr, on a per capita basis.

It's hard to remember what with the shiny new tier 1 coastal cities, but try not to forget that, on average, china is still quite poor with only 1/4th to 1/5th the per capita income of the richer advanced economy nations like the US, Sweden, UK, Germany, Japan, etc. China is on par with Mexico, Malaysia, Panama, Russia, or Bulgaria.

In short, the story is not so simple.

I assume China is also taking in a proportional amount of climate refugees as well.

About China:

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-china-can-achieve-...

Before The Brexit vote, the UK prime minister David Cameron went to Europe to get a "better deal" for the UK. What he came back with didn't answer the people's problems with sudden mass migration.

What should have been proposed was a unified Europe border force. Where each member state takes its share and also send resources to help manage the southern border.

Leaving the problem to Spain, Italy and Greece is the worst approach. The 1 million migrants in 2015 really was a dry run for what will happen when Africa is too hot.

The EU needs to plan now for receiving these people, because you can't send them back.

Plastics and polymers certainly aren't going away anytime soon so its not like a renewable energy world would just kill them. I don't expect plastic production to actually contract until long after we have made the grid renewable/sustainable and have extra energy for active carbon sequestering. Disposable plastic from grocery bags and simple wrappers are easy to reduce and eliminate but how many consumer devices are made of just metal or wood now and aren't 95% plastic? Plastic is still replacing tons of metal piping and ducts and on cars and everything else. When is the last time anyone has seen a wooden handled screwdriver for sale?