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Fortunately, China's CO2 emissions haven't increased much - and possibly started to decrease - in the last 2 years. A hugely disproportionate amount of China's

Fortunately, China's CO2 emissions haven't increased much - and possibly started to decrease - in the last 2 years. A hugely disproportionate amount of China's CO2 emissions (compared to the West) has been in construction [1]. China has built a mind-bogglingly insane amount of housing in the last 30 years - and given its population growth - it will not need to continue emitting CO2 for construction at this rate. China's second biggest source of emissions is Coal. This is becoming rapidly uneconomical in China. And unlike in the US, it doesn't seem like the special coal interests are given much consideration. This source of carbon will likely be 90% gone within 20 years. Finally - China does not have much oil, and seems to have very little interest in importing massive amounts of oil for cars. China is RAPIDLY moving to electric vehicles. And already, China uses much less CO2 per capita on transport than the West. If China is going to be a long-term problem on emissions - it's only because 22% of the world's population lives in China - and China is no longer poor. It's not going to be because Chinese people insist on driving gas powered vehicles everywhere and eating bacon 24/7. [1] https://chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

analyst74 5y ago
Exactly, gp's argument is quite sinister by choosing a timeframe from 1970s till now. US started cutting emission in 1970s, while China only started developing from an extremely impoverished, pre-industrial state that can barely feed its citizens. And despite standards of living in China still much lower than western countries, you can already see the reduction in per-capita emission since 2013, thanks to all the measures you mentioned.
- whatthesmack 5y ago
  This ignores the nuance that 500m of China's population lives a poor life in the countryside and are not really contributors to China's massive CO2 emissions. If you look at folks living in or near cities, China's per-capita numbers outpace those of the US by a wide margin. In other words... China has more polluting behavior to correct per-capita where the polluting occurs than the US does.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    Likely the opposite. Rural poor likely are HIGHER emissions per capita since they are still going through massive development, i.e. infra building, new housing stock. Development driven emissions spread over time that US gets to hide under historic data pre 70s, versus US's massive ongoing per capita emissions. Studies of peak cement US by province has interior poor provincings all late peak or fast growing. I don't know how anyone can look at Chinese urban dwellers living in 1-3BR apartments, with much higher savings rate (sigificanlty less consumption) and fraction of car ownership per capita and conclude they have more poluting behavior than US. Even stupid wasteful behaviors Xi is trying to crack down like food waste is a fraction of US.

analyst74 5y ago

Exactly, gp's argument is quite sinister by choosing a timeframe from 1970s till now. US started cutting emission in 1970s, while China only started developing from an extremely impoverished, pre-industrial state that can barely feed its citizens. And despite standards of living in China still much lower than western countries, you can already see the reduction in per-capita emission since 2013, thanks to all the measures you mentioned.

whatthesmack 5y ago
This ignores the nuance that 500m of China's population lives a poor life in the countryside and are not really contributors to China's massive CO2 emissions. If you look at folks living in or near cities, China's per-capita numbers outpace those of the US by a wide margin. In other words... China has more polluting behavior to correct per-capita where the polluting occurs than the US does.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  Likely the opposite. Rural poor likely are HIGHER emissions per capita since they are still going through massive development, i.e. infra building, new housing stock. Development driven emissions spread over time that US gets to hide under historic data pre 70s, versus US's massive ongoing per capita emissions. Studies of peak cement US by province has interior poor provincings all late peak or fast growing. I don't know how anyone can look at Chinese urban dwellers living in 1-3BR apartments, with much higher savings rate (sigificanlty less consumption) and fraction of car ownership per capita and conclude they have more poluting behavior than US. Even stupid wasteful behaviors Xi is trying to crack down like food waste is a fraction of US.