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You've got to be kidding... United States per-capita CO2 emmisions are 17.5 tons per year vs China's 6.18, and that's not even taking into account the fact tha

You've got to be kidding... United States per-capita CO2 emmisions are 17.5 tons per year vs China's 6.18, and that's not even taking into account the fact that China emits a lot of CO2 producing cheap products to sell to the US. https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country/ https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country...

azinman2 7y ago
I’m not arguing against US CO2, but the likelihood of those numbers for China being anywhere near accurate is small.
- onion2k 7y ago
  Likewise for the US.
  - alxlaz 7y ago
    Why? They are supported by pretty much every source out there. See e.g. EDGAR ( https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9d09ccd1-e0dd-11e9-9c4e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9d0... ), or this slightly older data set from the World Bank: https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=EN.ATM.CO2E.PC&country= https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=... . I'm not sure why you'd expect it to be otherwise. This is a per-capita figure, and carbon emissions are strongly correlated with income and purchasing power. CO2 emissions aren't driven by consumer goods production alone. There's an adjusted metric that puts things into an even better perspective: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#consumption-based-trade-adjusted-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... .
    - azinman2 7y ago
      So that last link has numbers drastically different from the GP’s data, and it says that it comes simply from fossil fuel combustion and cement — not population. Population is also not a great metric; the types of power plants, typical personal transportation usages, and transport of everyday items like food will vary greatly. These are also all very dynamic. The reality is all these data sources will he estimates. Estimates can be severely wrong — they can be produced by local governments with incentives to lie, or estimated by outside observers with poor actual knowledge. China has had a long history of empirical lying in their economic data locally due to internal party targets, for example. I see no reason for them to give accurate numbers to the UN/external world, where as with the US there’s enough decentralization and public data that there’s a better chance of being more accurate (but still probably quite off).
      - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
        If only there were some kind of device we could launch into space, fly over China and see for ourselves. Wait... https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/ https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/
        azinman2 7y ago
        And what does it show? I just see giant data sets.
      - alxlaz 7y ago
        Of course they're estimates, you can't exactly plug a meter on every exhaust pipe in the country and take a reading every couple of days. And of course the methodology varies from one study to another. But modern estimates do account for things like types of power plants, typical personal (and public, and business/industrial) transportation usages etc.. It's not like the whole scientific world waited for us to discuss this on HN before figuring out that maybe 10 people who go to work by bike isn't quite the same as 10 people who drive a jeep to work. There is less data available for China and therefore the estimates are likely wrong by a higher margin than the estimates for the US. But the figures do very much fit the demographics, economy and geography of China so I doubt that the margin is that high.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      Why? When azinman2 claimed the reported COTAP numbers for China are probably wrong I was saying the same is true for the US for exactly the same reasons - measuring emissions on a national scale is hard, there are good reasons not to believe any self-reported data that business relies on, and frankly America has worse climate emissions policies than China at the moment. I'm not suggesting that other agencies that independently measure emissions are wrong. It is possible to measure emissions remotely (eg the satellite that SmellyGeekBoy linked to), and that provides proper unbiased data.
- jlarocco 7y ago
  I don't think the numbers don't come from China, they're measured by satelites. https://www.livescience.com/49196-nasa-satellite-oco2-carbon-maps.html https://www.livescience.com/49196-nasa-satellite-oco2-carbon... China shows up very red, but they have 5x the people living in a much smaller area.
azangru 7y ago
> United States per-capita CO2 emmisions are 17.5 tons per year vs China's 6.18 Does this mean we need to multiply China's values by 4.2 (1386 mln Chinese vs 327 mln Americans) to account for all those capitas? ;-)
- 0xcafecafe 7y ago
  Per capita is the only metric that makes sense for carbon emissions since the effects are not going to be confined to artificial nation boundaries. So no, no need to multiply anything.
bumby 7y ago
I think a relevant point may also be the rate of increase. The numbers I saw show that the US per capita emissions actually trending down and China was still increasing. I’m not trying to absolve the US here just noting that rate of increase/decrease matters in addition to per capita and absolute values https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC https://www.theguardian.com/environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment
droithomme 7y ago
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-... > The U.S. Leads All Countries In Reducing Carbon Emissions Ok, so we are beating all other countries in the entire world at reducing carbon emissions. But you say that's not good enough and we are shit. Even though we are #1 it is not good enough in your op-ed. Does this not indicate you are incompetent, a drooling partisan imbecile lacking basic facts, and totally unqualified to speak an opinion on this topic my dear Mr. J. Larocco? Thank you for your detailed response! BTW, I personally have met you and your wife who is lovely and a great cook, her kimchi is the best, so this isn't some troll, I'm genuinely personally offended by your stupid comments to me, believe them to be inane, and am pushing back at you legitimately as a matter of personal honor: friend to friend. edit: thanks for the downvotes Jerry, bud. Give me a call, you have my number. Remember when you had to put your shoes outside JY's bedroom?

azinman2 7y ago

I’m not arguing against US CO2, but the likelihood of those numbers for China being anywhere near accurate is small.

onion2k 7y ago
Likewise for the US.
- alxlaz 7y ago
  Why? They are supported by pretty much every source out there. See e.g. EDGAR ( https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9d09ccd1-e0dd-11e9-9c4e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9d0... ), or this slightly older data set from the World Bank: https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=EN.ATM.CO2E.PC&country= https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=... . I'm not sure why you'd expect it to be otherwise. This is a per-capita figure, and carbon emissions are strongly correlated with income and purchasing power. CO2 emissions aren't driven by consumer goods production alone. There's an adjusted metric that puts things into an even better perspective: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#consumption-based-trade-adjusted-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... .
  - azinman2 7y ago
    So that last link has numbers drastically different from the GP’s data, and it says that it comes simply from fossil fuel combustion and cement — not population. Population is also not a great metric; the types of power plants, typical personal transportation usages, and transport of everyday items like food will vary greatly. These are also all very dynamic. The reality is all these data sources will he estimates. Estimates can be severely wrong — they can be produced by local governments with incentives to lie, or estimated by outside observers with poor actual knowledge. China has had a long history of empirical lying in their economic data locally due to internal party targets, for example. I see no reason for them to give accurate numbers to the UN/external world, where as with the US there’s enough decentralization and public data that there’s a better chance of being more accurate (but still probably quite off).
    - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      If only there were some kind of device we could launch into space, fly over China and see for ourselves. Wait... https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/ https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/
      - azinman2 7y ago
        And what does it show? I just see giant data sets.
    - alxlaz 7y ago
      Of course they're estimates, you can't exactly plug a meter on every exhaust pipe in the country and take a reading every couple of days. And of course the methodology varies from one study to another. But modern estimates do account for things like types of power plants, typical personal (and public, and business/industrial) transportation usages etc.. It's not like the whole scientific world waited for us to discuss this on HN before figuring out that maybe 10 people who go to work by bike isn't quite the same as 10 people who drive a jeep to work. There is less data available for China and therefore the estimates are likely wrong by a higher margin than the estimates for the US. But the figures do very much fit the demographics, economy and geography of China so I doubt that the margin is that high.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    Why? When azinman2 claimed the reported COTAP numbers for China are probably wrong I was saying the same is true for the US for exactly the same reasons - measuring emissions on a national scale is hard, there are good reasons not to believe any self-reported data that business relies on, and frankly America has worse climate emissions policies than China at the moment. I'm not suggesting that other agencies that independently measure emissions are wrong. It is possible to measure emissions remotely (eg the satellite that SmellyGeekBoy linked to), and that provides proper unbiased data.
jlarocco 7y ago
I don't think the numbers don't come from China, they're measured by satelites. https://www.livescience.com/49196-nasa-satellite-oco2-carbon-maps.html https://www.livescience.com/49196-nasa-satellite-oco2-carbon... China shows up very red, but they have 5x the people living in a much smaller area.

azangru 7y ago

> United States per-capita CO2 emmisions are 17.5 tons per year vs China's 6.18 Does this mean we need to multiply China's values by 4.2 (1386 mln Chinese vs 327 mln Americans) to account for all those capitas? ;-)

0xcafecafe 7y ago
Per capita is the only metric that makes sense for carbon emissions since the effects are not going to be confined to artificial nation boundaries. So no, no need to multiply anything.

bumby 7y ago

I think a relevant point may also be the rate of increase. The numbers I saw show that the US per capita emissions actually trending down and China was still increasing. I’m not trying to absolve the US here just noting that rate of increase/decrease matters in addition to per capita and absolute values https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC https://www.theguardian.com/environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment

droithomme 7y ago

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-... > The U.S. Leads All Countries In Reducing Carbon Emissions Ok, so we are beating all other countries in the entire world at reducing carbon emissions. But you say that's not good enough and we are shit. Even though we are #1 it is not good enough in your op-ed. Does this not indicate you are incompetent, a drooling partisan imbecile lacking basic facts, and totally unqualified to speak an opinion on this topic my dear Mr. J. Larocco? Thank you for your detailed response! BTW, I personally have met you and your wife who is lovely and a great cook, her kimchi is the best, so this isn't some troll, I'm genuinely personally offended by your stupid comments to me, believe them to be inane, and am pushing back at you legitimately as a matter of personal honor: friend to friend. edit: thanks for the downvotes Jerry, bud. Give me a call, you have my number. Remember when you had to put your shoes outside JY's bedroom?