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China is also the biggest contributor to CO2 emission by a large margin.

by playing_colours 7y ago

isostatic 7y ago
Western countries outsource CO2 emissions to China
- VvR-Ox 7y ago
  Yes. It's easier to blame China this way and what would the West do if their favorite nemesis was gone?
yk 7y ago
It's also the largest country, by a large margin.
- rimliu 7y ago
  Where does this leave Russia which is almost twice as big and Canada which is only slightly bigger? And China is less than 1% larger than USA. Population-wise China is the largest, but India is not that far behind.
  - trickstra 7y ago
    Siberia
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  China is only slightly larger than India by population; 1.39 billion vs. 1.35 billion. https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=XE23 https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=... (And yes, "slightly" is 40 million people, more than the population of California.)
trickstra 7y ago
Not per capita, by far.
wcoenen 7y ago
Not yet by cumulative emissions, and CO2 is a cumulative problem. Also definitely not per capita.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Numerically integrating the emissions of China and US [1] from 1971-2016 leads to: China: 183,000 million tons C02 US: 234,000 million tons C02 That's a 1.28x more for the US. Since industrialization in the US started well before 1971 (you can infer this from the graph), this is significant underestimate. Obviously, the other important estimate is per capita emissions, which would be even lower for China than the 1.28x estimate above. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_1970-2017_six_countries_and_confederations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxi...
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Growth rates matter. China's emissions are growing rapidly and are largely end-loaded. The rule of 70 is useful; divide 70 by growth rate in percent tobget doubling time in years. US carbon emissions have been roughly flat, and falling most years since 2005, likely from natgas substitution for coal in electricity generation, though total petroleum use has also fallen: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34872 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34872 Too: total energy in the US as of the 1970s was doubling roughly every 20 years (3.5% annual growth), meaning that "all prior history" doesn't matter to much -- half of all emissions had occurred 1950-1970 (very roughly, from memory). Similarly, as coal use was rampling up in the 1860s, contemporary writers noted that a fraction of known reserves would satisfy US energy needs for a million years ... at then-current levels of consumption. What happened, of course, is that low-cost energy spurred growth and coal use exploded. Current reserves as estimated by BP's annual statistical review are closer to 300 years, a reduction in time of over 3,000-fold. Henry Erni (1865): https://archive.org/details/coaloilpetroleum00erni/page/14 https://archive.org/details/coaloilpetroleum00erni/page/14 BP: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... China's emissions were projected to rise 5% in 2018, by one source, a doubling in 15 years. https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon-climate-emissions-rise-in-2018/ https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon... There's much more to the picture, including equity, offshoring pollution, and history. bBut a simple integration over past use alone is very incomplete.

China is also the biggest contributor to CO2 emission by a large margin.

isostatic 7y ago

Western countries outsource CO2 emissions to China

VvR-Ox 7y ago
Yes. It's easier to blame China this way and what would the West do if their favorite nemesis was gone?

yk 7y ago

It's also the largest country, by a large margin.

rimliu 7y ago
Where does this leave Russia which is almost twice as big and Canada which is only slightly bigger? And China is less than 1% larger than USA. Population-wise China is the largest, but India is not that far behind.
- trickstra 7y ago
  Siberia
dredmorbius 7y ago
China is only slightly larger than India by population; 1.39 billion vs. 1.35 billion. https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=XE23 https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=... (And yes, "slightly" is 40 million people, more than the population of California.)

trickstra 7y ago

Not per capita, by far.

wcoenen 7y ago

Not yet by cumulative emissions, and CO2 is a cumulative problem. Also definitely not per capita.

abdullahkhalids 7y ago
Numerically integrating the emissions of China and US [1] from 1971-2016 leads to: China: 183,000 million tons C02 US: 234,000 million tons C02 That's a 1.28x more for the US. Since industrialization in the US started well before 1971 (you can infer this from the graph), this is significant underestimate. Obviously, the other important estimate is per capita emissions, which would be even lower for China than the 1.28x estimate above. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_1970-2017_six_countries_and_confederations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxi...
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Growth rates matter. China's emissions are growing rapidly and are largely end-loaded. The rule of 70 is useful; divide 70 by growth rate in percent tobget doubling time in years. US carbon emissions have been roughly flat, and falling most years since 2005, likely from natgas substitution for coal in electricity generation, though total petroleum use has also fallen: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34872 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34872 Too: total energy in the US as of the 1970s was doubling roughly every 20 years (3.5% annual growth), meaning that "all prior history" doesn't matter to much -- half of all emissions had occurred 1950-1970 (very roughly, from memory). Similarly, as coal use was rampling up in the 1860s, contemporary writers noted that a fraction of known reserves would satisfy US energy needs for a million years ... at then-current levels of consumption. What happened, of course, is that low-cost energy spurred growth and coal use exploded. Current reserves as estimated by BP's annual statistical review are closer to 300 years, a reduction in time of over 3,000-fold. Henry Erni (1865): https://archive.org/details/coaloilpetroleum00erni/page/14 https://archive.org/details/coaloilpetroleum00erni/page/14 BP: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... China's emissions were projected to rise 5% in 2018, by one source, a doubling in 15 years. https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon-climate-emissions-rise-in-2018/ https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon... There's much more to the picture, including equity, offshoring pollution, and history. bBut a simple integration over past use alone is very incomplete.