Chinese emissions per capita are on par with the EU. And yes this is based on a consumption per capita basis before we whip out the industrial argument
I think that by now they are higher in China than in Europe, but quite a bit lower than in the US. (The numbers I have seen are Europe 6 metric tons, China 8-9, and US 14.)
Africa is at about 1 metric ton/person. We should expect (even hope) that this number is going up.
I think those are territorial emissions, which don’t adjust for trade and goods. These overwhelmingly originate from China, which raises the emissions. This is why consumption-based emissions are important because there is some validity in the claim that the west offshored its emissions to China but it isn’t everything because countries can still do a lot to lower their emissions through transportation, agriculture, and heating/cooling.
I would have guessed that China had fallen much more than this is presenting. Over half of their cars sold last year were electric. The big change is in the freight trucks. they have massive solar farms, hydro electric, as well as nuclear. The still use coal though, and oil for electric generation, so...
I remember the Olympics there, and many of the athletes hesitant to even go because the air pollution was beyond the scope of merely bad. I got the impression that this embarrassed them and this push toward greener solutions came from that moment.
Interesting read. I wonder what the China figures will look like in 2030, as there seems to be conflicting evidence on whether the country has reached peak carbon. China's dominance in renewables has little to do with altruism and more to do with self-interest, of course, which is fine; that's usually the best way to achieve a result anyway. And the conflict in the Gulf may even help further concentrate minds, with the whole 'energy security' angle becoming much more prominent.
Unfortunately this is using the IPCC fraud of accounting for emissions by place of emission rather than end benefit, which is a far more accurate measure. Offshoring to deindustrialise the OECD involves a significant change to these percentages.
Good article but everyone in the comments is still extremely focused on martyring the west. The west is responsible for historical emissions but this is a declining figure.
On a consumption per capita emissions basis, the EU and China are roughly equal at 9. So everyone claiming this line of thinking is just being facetious and lazy on their research.
The U.S. is about 15.8 before anyone asks. That’s about a 30-35% decline since 1990
At some point you gotta ask yourself: deep down, are you in this to stop the atmosphere trapping so much heat? Or is this more about the little self-loathing thrill you get from hating the West?
Asia manufacturers most of the goods Europe, Nth America and Oz consume - cars, steel, plastics, lollies, computer……… Asia sacrifices it’s environments and people for the rest of the worlds clean conscious.
Mr Google states China exports 74 to 94% of all its manufactured goods. That’s a lot of CO2 not recorded on western capitalism’s accounts. Plus China has the second largest population, therefore per capita the population is less energy consumptive. China has rapidly adopted technology to move its population around cleaner with fast electric rail and cars. A friend is currently in China, he tells me there is a recurring slogan he sees in the streets: Serve the People - I find that powerful. Mixed with Confucian philosophy one can see why China is again a dominant economic powerhouse. Pointing a fingers that western capitalism pollutes less is not the true picture.
According to Mrs Google: Asia accounts for roughly 40% to 44% of total U.S. goods imports, according to historical and recent trade data patterns tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau. I live in Reservoir, Victoria, Australia. When I was in my 20s this area was full of manufacturing - all gone now, replaced with housing and made in China labels and twin cab utes made in Thailand.
It's true that co2 emissions don't care about per capita figures. But humans should, especially if the goal is emission reduction.
India emits the same emissions as the US, with five times as many people. India is already taking steps to reduce fossil fuel usage for reason of energy independence e.g electrification of 99% of railways, investment in solar energy, etc. But There's not a lot in their power to bring down their emission number for the foreseeable future (short of actual human sacrifice).
The US on the other hand, has a lot of agency in their lifestyle choices to bring down their carbon emissions. This is why the per capita figures matter.
But let's say you want to only look at total emissions, not per capita emissions. What do you think China, Indian, and the other Asian countries do about it? How should they bring down their emissions?
Now, instead of looking at current emissions, compare cumulative emissions per country and see what it looks like. I'm sympathetic to the notion that all countries need to bring down emissions, but I also recognize that the people of India and China still have standards of living below the poorest people of, say, Canada or Japan. Do you expect their leaders to explain to them that they need to continue to remain poor for the sake of the environment which was notably destroyed in the first place by the rich countries? How long do you imagine those leaders would remain in office?
You’re definitely right. There’s no constituency for emissions cuts in the places where emissions are growing. It’s an argument I’ve made again and again. If we were sane about this, we would realize this has major implications for climate strategy.
So, what's the solution? I ask this not in the sense that you're responsible for coming up with it, but maybe you've got ideas. My thought is that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere currently per country should dictate the level of effort to remove said carbon as opposed to the level currently being emitted. Obviously, people and their representatives in rich countries are not going to be happy with that, but what other approach would be fair?
A number of commentators have argued that the only important number is emissions per capita. This is a logical fallacy that doesn’t withstand the slightest scrutiny.
The majority of new coal plants are being constructed and brought on line in China and India. These plants are being used to produce steel and concrete, two important sources of carbon emissions. The windmills, solar panels, manufactured products that are being exported contribute to carbon emissions. Particulate emissions from dirty coal cause sickness and death.
It follows that the closing of cleaner factories in the developed world allows for the export of pollution, sickness, and death to the developing world because they are producing less emissions per capita. We also get cheap stuff. According to this logic, everything is fine even as the world gets worse. Natural gas in the United States is bad because our per capita emissions are higher, even when the products are for export.
Following this logic farther down the line, we can ramp up consumption of Chinese goods made with high emissions while reducing low-emission domestic production because the emissions, sickness, and death happen elsewhere and there are a lot of people so the total quantity of pollution doesn’t matter.
Some increase in emissions is inevitable as the world grows richer. However, per capita emissions are far from the only important metric. That is an availability heuristic caused by lazy thinking.
Of course, that does not alter the fact that Asia (including India and Vietnam) has constructed coal plants that will be producing carbon emissions and particulate matter for five decades, regardless of per capita numbers, and that making an allowance for per capita emissions would lead to far greater pollution.
I don’t think that you are arguing that the developed world does not export emissions to places where per capita emissions of all types are less and therefore the emissions are ok. If that were the case, we should import everything from places where absolute emissions are greater, but pollution per capita is less.
My understanding of your argument is that seeding the oceans to remove carbon is a viable alternative, which might actually mean something.
My point stands that per capita emissions is not the « only » metric that counts, even if exports accounted for 1%.
30% of Chinese emissions are for steel and concrete used in construction, and those aren’t exported. And the use of coal for electricity generation in China has finally leveled off as a percentage of total electricity, but sadly it’s at about 50%.
The only data that matters is the per capita emissions, exactly what your graphs do not show. Asia without Russia contains 57% of the world’s population, very close to its co2 share. The Us is 4,6%, but emits far more.
Borders are irrelevant, we have one earth, same air and same collective destiny.
The US, the most, the EU to follow and rest of the so called west need to do a lot more homework.
As is well established, electromagnetic radiation is always careful to inquire how many people contributed to emitting a given molecule of carbon dioxide before deciding how much energy to transfer to it, yes…
Looking at emissions by country makes little sense - you have to look at emissions per person as well.
China and India are populous countries.
The atmosphere doesn’t react to demography, it traps heat in direct relation to carbon concentration
It does not know all that much about countries either.
Great response
Chinese emissions per capita are on par with the EU. And yes this is based on a consumption per capita basis before we whip out the industrial argument
I think that by now they are higher in China than in Europe, but quite a bit lower than in the US. (The numbers I have seen are Europe 6 metric tons, China 8-9, and US 14.)
Africa is at about 1 metric ton/person. We should expect (even hope) that this number is going up.
I think those are territorial emissions, which don’t adjust for trade and goods. These overwhelmingly originate from China, which raises the emissions. This is why consumption-based emissions are important because there is some validity in the claim that the west offshored its emissions to China but it isn’t everything because countries can still do a lot to lower their emissions through transportation, agriculture, and heating/cooling.
Here is the source for the EU: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20260219-1
And China : https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/gL0oCV3R4y
I’m sure emissions per person are very high in Greenland, is that what we should worry about?
I would have guessed that China had fallen much more than this is presenting. Over half of their cars sold last year were electric. The big change is in the freight trucks. they have massive solar farms, hydro electric, as well as nuclear. The still use coal though, and oil for electric generation, so...
I remember the Olympics there, and many of the athletes hesitant to even go because the air pollution was beyond the scope of merely bad. I got the impression that this embarrassed them and this push toward greener solutions came from that moment.
Thanks for this.. it was a good read.
Interesting read. I wonder what the China figures will look like in 2030, as there seems to be conflicting evidence on whether the country has reached peak carbon. China's dominance in renewables has little to do with altruism and more to do with self-interest, of course, which is fine; that's usually the best way to achieve a result anyway. And the conflict in the Gulf may even help further concentrate minds, with the whole 'energy security' angle becoming much more prominent.
Now do the same with per capita emissions. They reflect something like personal responsability much more.
Both pictures answer different questions.
Per country answers to: "Which government has the most responsability and clout on reducing emissions?"
Per capita answers to: "Which citizen has the most responsability and clout on reducing emissions?"
So the have both their place - but you need both.
Unfortunately this is using the IPCC fraud of accounting for emissions by place of emission rather than end benefit, which is a far more accurate measure. Offshoring to deindustrialise the OECD involves a significant change to these percentages.
Good article but everyone in the comments is still extremely focused on martyring the west. The west is responsible for historical emissions but this is a declining figure.
On a consumption per capita emissions basis, the EU and China are roughly equal at 9. So everyone claiming this line of thinking is just being facetious and lazy on their research.
The U.S. is about 15.8 before anyone asks. That’s about a 30-35% decline since 1990
At some point you gotta ask yourself: deep down, are you in this to stop the atmosphere trapping so much heat? Or is this more about the little self-loathing thrill you get from hating the West?
Asia manufacturers most of the goods Europe, Nth America and Oz consume - cars, steel, plastics, lollies, computer……… Asia sacrifices it’s environments and people for the rest of the worlds clean conscious.
Only 11% of China’s emissions arise from products it exports.
Mr Google states China exports 74 to 94% of all its manufactured goods. That’s a lot of CO2 not recorded on western capitalism’s accounts. Plus China has the second largest population, therefore per capita the population is less energy consumptive. China has rapidly adopted technology to move its population around cleaner with fast electric rail and cars. A friend is currently in China, he tells me there is a recurring slogan he sees in the streets: Serve the People - I find that powerful. Mixed with Confucian philosophy one can see why China is again a dominant economic powerhouse. Pointing a fingers that western capitalism pollutes less is not the true picture.
How is that calculated?
That isn’t true. In America only about 15% of consumer goods are imported from Asia. And maybe 0.00001% of that is lollies.
According to Mrs Google: Asia accounts for roughly 40% to 44% of total U.S. goods imports, according to historical and recent trade data patterns tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau. I live in Reservoir, Victoria, Australia. When I was in my 20s this area was full of manufacturing - all gone now, replaced with housing and made in China labels and twin cab utes made in Thailand.
Only issue here is per capital is absent. Aldo China and India are emitting more because living standards are rising.
It's true that co2 emissions don't care about per capita figures. But humans should, especially if the goal is emission reduction.
India emits the same emissions as the US, with five times as many people. India is already taking steps to reduce fossil fuel usage for reason of energy independence e.g electrification of 99% of railways, investment in solar energy, etc. But There's not a lot in their power to bring down their emission number for the foreseeable future (short of actual human sacrifice).
The US on the other hand, has a lot of agency in their lifestyle choices to bring down their carbon emissions. This is why the per capita figures matter.
But let's say you want to only look at total emissions, not per capita emissions. What do you think China, Indian, and the other Asian countries do about it? How should they bring down their emissions?
Mr Toro - so what do you suggest? Surely you don't want to maintain that "we in the West" take it easy with carbon reduction because Asia is worse?
From a moral standpoint every individual with the largest carbon footprint has most responsibility. Which is still mostly us.
Also how can we ask Asia to do more if we don't lead by example? (The US paying companies NOT to build windfarms. Are you kidding me?)
Practically we must reduce CO2 everywhere we can - where sadly the constraints are political. The world is not rational.
Now, instead of looking at current emissions, compare cumulative emissions per country and see what it looks like. I'm sympathetic to the notion that all countries need to bring down emissions, but I also recognize that the people of India and China still have standards of living below the poorest people of, say, Canada or Japan. Do you expect their leaders to explain to them that they need to continue to remain poor for the sake of the environment which was notably destroyed in the first place by the rich countries? How long do you imagine those leaders would remain in office?
You’re definitely right. There’s no constituency for emissions cuts in the places where emissions are growing. It’s an argument I’ve made again and again. If we were sane about this, we would realize this has major implications for climate strategy.
So, what's the solution? I ask this not in the sense that you're responsible for coming up with it, but maybe you've got ideas. My thought is that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere currently per country should dictate the level of effort to remove said carbon as opposed to the level currently being emitted. Obviously, people and their representatives in rich countries are not going to be happy with that, but what other approach would be fair?
I think that’s the right general principle. The key word is removal. We need to develop new tech to remove carbon already emitted affordably.
This is what my day job is all about, actually:
https://oceanvisions.org/phytoplankton-cdr/
A number of commentators have argued that the only important number is emissions per capita. This is a logical fallacy that doesn’t withstand the slightest scrutiny.
The majority of new coal plants are being constructed and brought on line in China and India. These plants are being used to produce steel and concrete, two important sources of carbon emissions. The windmills, solar panels, manufactured products that are being exported contribute to carbon emissions. Particulate emissions from dirty coal cause sickness and death.
It follows that the closing of cleaner factories in the developed world allows for the export of pollution, sickness, and death to the developing world because they are producing less emissions per capita. We also get cheap stuff. According to this logic, everything is fine even as the world gets worse. Natural gas in the United States is bad because our per capita emissions are higher, even when the products are for export.
Following this logic farther down the line, we can ramp up consumption of Chinese goods made with high emissions while reducing low-emission domestic production because the emissions, sickness, and death happen elsewhere and there are a lot of people so the total quantity of pollution doesn’t matter.
Some increase in emissions is inevitable as the world grows richer. However, per capita emissions are far from the only important metric. That is an availability heuristic caused by lazy thinking.
Except less than 10% of China’s emissions are tied to exports.
* edit: looked it up, it’s actually 11% - https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/18/3211/2026/
Of course, that does not alter the fact that Asia (including India and Vietnam) has constructed coal plants that will be producing carbon emissions and particulate matter for five decades, regardless of per capita numbers, and that making an allowance for per capita emissions would lead to far greater pollution.
I don’t think that you are arguing that the developed world does not export emissions to places where per capita emissions of all types are less and therefore the emissions are ok. If that were the case, we should import everything from places where absolute emissions are greater, but pollution per capita is less.
My understanding of your argument is that seeding the oceans to remove carbon is a viable alternative, which might actually mean something.
My point stands that per capita emissions is not the « only » metric that counts, even if exports accounted for 1%.
30% of Chinese emissions are for steel and concrete used in construction, and those aren’t exported. And the use of coal for electricity generation in China has finally leveled off as a percentage of total electricity, but sadly it’s at about 50%.
Thanks for the reply, good information. However, that does not make per capita the « only » metric that counts.
The only data that matters is the per capita emissions, exactly what your graphs do not show. Asia without Russia contains 57% of the world’s population, very close to its co2 share. The Us is 4,6%, but emits far more.
Borders are irrelevant, we have one earth, same air and same collective destiny.
The US, the most, the EU to follow and rest of the so called west need to do a lot more homework.
One per cent brighter?
As is well established, electromagnetic radiation is always careful to inquire how many people contributed to emitting a given molecule of carbon dioxide before deciding how much energy to transfer to it, yes…
So if you're required to define every country in the world as RICH or POOR, no middle ground, no additional categories, is China RICH or POOR?