And how China compares its 2024 to 2025?
Coal share of energy likely peaked for China in 2025, even as overall energy usage increased - almost all that increase has come from renewables, which China is of course doubling down upon. China is on trend to become an electrostate, USA on trend to regress on energy infrastructure which will power the next 100 hundred years
US bad, China very bad.
My point is that people tend to turn emissions into a pissing contest about which country is emitting more, and it always becomes a debate of total emission vs. per capita, because it's ultimately a political issue.
What I'm saying is that total emissions are what matter for climate change.
If China split evenly into two new countries, each country’s emissions are half what China’s was.
This is why per capita matters.
Nah.
I'm trying, but really struggling, to understand your logic of anchoring on land area.
Can you explain why you think that's a better metric than per capita? Is it because there are climate-changing emissions that are NOT driven by humans (e.g. seasonal wildfires, volcanic eruptions, etc.)? Or is it something else?
It’s very hard to calculate exactly how much the ecosystem inside a country borders can offset, but a good enough metric is its landmass.
Sure, countries like Morrocos will win with this metric and countries like Brasil will lose. But in the end, it’s much better than rewarding what is actually a problem (for climate) like if it was some virtue: high birth rates.
> It’s very hard to calculate exactly how much the ecosystem inside a country borders can offset, but a good enough metric is its landmass.
I think this is a flawed basis, because weather patterns, sea rise, etc. don't honor country borders. Only highly localized pollution is somewhat "constrained", but country borders are even porous to that.
So I still don't know that it is an effective incentive to find a better balance. Per capita also has its problems, like penalizing less-developed countries from developing their societies, industries.
These 5th column arguments, are just appaling. USA (and EU, if we finally wake up and smell the coffee) don't have to pay for Asian high birthrates.
If a country has the same area as another, I expect that country to stick to the same total emissions.
China doesn't have to pay for it's high birthrates in the past? Well, then the West doesn't have to pay for their inovation and productivity in the past as well.
By that logic Canada, Australia, NZ, and arguably even US are settled places and should not be counted.
I do agree that every goalpost can be moved by drawing the boundary as you wish, but surely the fact that developed countries enjoyed a good standard of living for 100+ years and contributed more for a long time counts for something
This is a fair criticism of per capita US emissions.
> a lot of CO2 there comes from US outsourcing energy-intensive production
This is not a reasonable indictment of US per capita emissions. China chooses to manufacture for the US and the world. Consumption, by the US, but importantly, also the rest of the world would be less if China didn't do cheap manufacturing at scale.
Reasonable framing is PRC is emitting a lot simply because it has 4x people, exports are not substantial contributor, with caveat their population is declining. US is emitting more than what accounting shows, while also adding more increasing pop with higher per capita emissions. Probably not reasonable to criticize countries for population growth, but pretty fair to point out US (and other fossil exporters) should have exports count towards emissions, conversely, PRC renewable exports should be credited.
Instead they're being punished for producing the panel that saves other people emissions. For comparison US exported ~5 billion BOE / barrels of oil equivalent per year, PRC exported 0.5 BOE in solar, which translates to displacing 15 billion BOE assuming 30 year life span. In real world, PRC renewable exports is displacing 3x more emission than US fossil exports generate. That 15b BOE is larger than PRC emissions via exports, i.e. for all intents and purpose PRC export is now (substantial) net carbon sink, it's a global decarbonization utility. Meanwhile US chooses to be export fossil to the world.
- USA emits much more per Capita
- CO2 accumulates in atmosphere, so you must account for emissions since the country industrialized
- USA sent it's polluting industries to China and buy the final products
The AA motto goes well: The first step is to admit you have a problem
The fact that US emissions are not going down shows that something is really really wrong there.
Europe claiming that its emissions are going down is deceptive as taking into account its share of emission in China would paint a different picture.
This was never about saving the planet, it was always about destroying our socio-economic system. Look how the tune changed in Brazil when Lula came into power: they never burned so much rainforest, but now it's fine, becasue socialists are in power.
China falling actually.
> USA 6 billion tons CO2 and falling
You're literally commenting on an article about it increasing.
What "trends" are you talking about?
Edit: cursory search shows a flat/falling trend.[0]
[0]https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha...
It's also silly to look at anything other than per-capita metrics. If China arbitrarily splits in half or expands, the per-capita metric remains invariant to the historical luck factor behind why national borders are the way they are.
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coal-power-drops-in-chi...
Isn't it because they're now getting Russian oil and gas at rock bottom prices from western sanctions?
Re: China, see: [1] which goes into some detail. There's also various IEA energy reports which anticipated a fall for India and China after the fall in every other country (save, apparently the US which is bucking the trend).
gas (ofss fuel) is increasing a lot... So yeah, there is some renewables, but we're still pretty far from what is needed...
I was unaware of this - thanks.
Not per capita. Absolute.
Any other questions?