In 2017, US had largest decline in CO2 emissions

[Varitok]

In before people think its Trump and not California, New york and other states just doing it themselves. Maga idiots really need better propaganda.

[Toogoodman]

They are the biggest spenders in the world when it comes to green energy, yeah. But it can't keep up with their rapid industrialization.

For reference, China emits about half of what the US does (CO2) on a per capita basis.

A massive majority of China also lives in rural, absolute poverty conditions. A lot of them don't even have running water, that's such a false equivalency, when in the US even our poor live with immensely high living standards compared to the rest of the world. Do we have homelessness? Yeah, sure, but most people living on the street either have a severe drug problem, or mental illness.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

In before people think its Trump and not California, New york and other states just doing it themselves. Maga idiots really need better propaganda.

What?
This was the third fucking post.

It's what happens when you have a competent leader like Trump in office.

You have to be waaaayyyyy faster to get ahead of the Trump Train.

[Pengekaer]

The graph is showing reality and the reality is that despite the haters the USA is leading in the fight against Climate change whilst Europe and China are lagging behind. Goes to show that action goes beyond just signing am agreement.

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Its a shame so many people bought into chinese state propaganda

Lol, these numbers are actually pretty good, but not in the sense you think. They are as a matter of fact quite revealing, the EU CO2 and US CO2 emissions increased and decreased, respectively, by the same number in absolute terms (+42×10^6 ton for EU, - 42×10^6 ton for the US), but that corresponded to a just a miniscule reduction of US CO2 emissions of -0.5 % for the US whereas it corresponded to a substantial increase of + 1.5 % of EU emissions. So in percentages of total CO2 emissions, 42×10^6 ton represent entirely different magnitudes for the US and the EU. On top of that, The EU has 180 million more citizens ( so the absolute CO2 emissions are shared between substantislly more people). It does not take an Oxford degree to calculate that this translates into a collosal difference in emissions per capita between the EU and the US. A factor of 3 is probably not wrong. Heck the per capita, or hell, the absolute CO2 emissions might intersect between the EU and the US in about 40 years of the 2017 trend continues lol with no alterations. The us is not green in the slightest, countries like the Netherlands, France, Uk etc are much closer to being that.

[Yuujin]

It's what happens when you have a competent leader like Trump in office.

Can't argue. His stance as a climate change denier has motivated rational, intelligent people to take action into their own hands. I guess that is a win for him?

[Saphyron]

So I took a look at where the graph got the source from and are currently compiling it.

This is energy consumption per capita. and are making graph for carbon dioxide emissions as well.

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en...ull-report.pdf
this is the source

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
this is my google docs where im working right now

And this is CO2 Emissions per capita.

[Deleted]

Funny how Europe sees such large increases, yet the EU always tells others how to do things better.

that is because the eu emitts less co2 per capita than china and a lot less than the us

it has already made many changes which lower co2 and its not ecen feasible to cut its emissions as much as usa, also given the size of the us that decrease is not as impressive as some here want to believe

misinformation might be very bad but information without context rly isnt much better

[Independent voter]

Why are we using "per capita"?


Why don't we divide emissions by square miles or hectares? If you have more area of the Earth's surface you should be able to emit more CO2. Sounds silly? Well so does "per capita".

The only reason to use "per capita" is give China and India a break. A break they shouldn't get.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Funny how Europe sees such large increases, yet the EU always tells others how to do things better.

Good example of useless treaties being useless just so useless leaders can bicker over useless paper.

[Saphyron]

Why are we using "per capita"?


Why don't we divide emissions by square miles or hectares? If you have more area of the Earth's surface you should be able to emit more CO2. Sounds silly? Well so does "per capita".

The only reason to use "per capita" is give China and India a break. A break they shouldn't get.

Gimmie a moment then I will do a per Square miles

EDIT: here is per square miles

USA is still in top half.
There was 66 countries in that source material and USA is number 30 in emission per Square miles

So for all the source material. out of 66 countries.
USA is number 9 in consumed energy per capita.
USA is number 9 in CO2 Emission per capita.
USA is number 30 in CO2 Emission per Square Miles.

Beeing top is not a good thing here

[Talon8669]

Trump pulled out of the Paris Accords because it was a bad deal. Other participants did not agree to the same bend over terms Obama did. The US would be putting 100 billion in per year and agreeing to regulations that were not sustainable.

The regulations would have had detrimental impacts on economic growth. If clean energy is the goal it should be funded by free enterprise and not a heavy handed government that is already spending more than most.

This is 100% true. Also most states have been working prior to the Paris accord to reduce emissions which is why California is 2 years ahead of their goal.

[Citizen T]

The only rational way to compare CO2 output is per capita. Of course it's fine to measure it by nations, but that number needs to be normalised against the population if you want to make comparisons, because countries don't all have the same population. Remember, we're one planet with one atmosphere. Just because someone lives in a smaller country (by population) doesn't entitle them to leave a bigger personal carbon footprint.




While that is true, it's also not doing the world much good how much the USA is emitting today, and a significant effort is still required (at the current rate of change you're looking at 50 years) before they can even claim to be an par with China, let alone better.

rationally? I'd think that it should be compared to GDP. This would actually show how wisely (efficiency) the CO2 emissions are being "used".

[Belize]

Thanks Obama!

[Dezerte]

China is also filled with regions in which their citizens live in a near extreme poverty situation. The bulk of its pollution comes from placea like beijing where they have plenty of coal power plants.

A massive majority of China also lives in rural, absolute poverty conditions. A lot of them don't even have running water, that's such a false equivalency, when in the US even our poor live with immensely high living standards compared to the rest of the world. Do we have homelessness? Yeah, sure, but most people living on the street either have a severe drug problem, or mental illness.

Hence the lower numbers on a per capita-basis. Also worth noting that because China exports much of it's produced goods to the west the "real" CO2-footprint per Chinese person could be lower.

[Endus]

Why are we using "per capita"?


Why don't we divide emissions by square miles or hectares? If you have more area of the Earth's surface you should be able to emit more CO2. Sounds silly? Well so does "per capita".

The only reason to use "per capita" is give China and India a break. A break they shouldn't get.

Because per-capita tells you how efficient and effective your country is in terms of reducing emissions. If you don't look at it per-capita, you're looking at population levels more than you're looking at how good emissions regulations or reductions are in that country.

If you're not looking at it per-capita, then you're trying to argue that a small island nation that burns coal for heat and runs their 1950s-era cars 24/7 are "more environmentally sound" than a heavily-green-focused country with a population of tens of millions.

Not using per-capita analysis is an attempt to misrepresent national efforts to reduce emissions.

Otherwise, you're suggesting that splitting China up into 50 mini-Chinas under a collective trade agreement like the EU would completely fix the problem of China's emissions, even if we change literally nothing else. Because none of those 50 new countries has enough of a share of that prior total to really be that big a deal, by itself. Does that make sense? Or does it seem like an attempt to manipulate the facts?

[NED funded]

Why are we using "per capita"?


Why don't we divide emissions by square miles or hectares? If you have more area of the Earth's surface you should be able to emit more CO2. Sounds silly? Well so does "per capita".

The only reason to use "per capita" is give China and India a break. A break they shouldn't get.

By square miles is really dumb tho. Density is associated with less CO2 emissions. A big city like Paris pollutes less than many suburbs as people travel less in places with a lot of density and public transport becomes viable the more dense a place becomes. Less cars = less pollution.

[judgementofantonidas]

I read somewhere that California met it's 2020 CO2 goals recently so it's a couple years ahead of schedule.

So we might meet our Paris Accords goals after all.






https://www.aei.org/publication/char...-this-century/



From the June 2018 BP Statistical Review of Global Energy (67th edition) here are some details on C02 emissions in 2017:

1. Global CO2 emissions from energy in 2017 grew by 1.6% (and 426.4 million tons, see data here), rebounding from the stagnant volumes during 2014-2016, and faster than the 10-year average of 1.3%.

2. Declines in CO2 emissions in 2017 were led by the US (-0.5% and 42 million tons, see chart above). This is the ninth time in this century that the US has had the largest decline in emissions in the world. This also was the third consecutive year that emissions in the US declined, though the fall was the smallest over the last three years.

3. Carbon emissions from energy use from the US are the lowest since 1992, the year that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into existence. The next largest decline was in Ukraine (-10.1% and 28.1 tons).

4. The largest increase in carbon emissions in 2017 came from China (1.6% and 119 tons), a reversal from the past three years when the largest increases in emissions came from India. China’s emissions in 2017 were 0.3% higher than the previous peak in 2014. China has had the world’s largest increments in carbon emission every year this century except in four years – 2000 and between 2014-16. The next highest increment came from India where emissions rose by 4.4% (93.2 million tons, see chart), though lower than its 10-year average (6% p.a.).

5. Together, China and India accounted for nearly half (212.2 million tons) of the increase in global carbon emissions (426.4 million tons). EU emissions were also up (1.5% and 42.4 million tons, see chart) with just Spain accounting for 44% of the increase in EU emissions. Among other EU members, UK and Denmark reported the lowest carbon emissions in their history.

MP: For that impressive “greening” of America, we can thank the underground oceans of America’s natural gas that are now accessible because of the revolutionary, advanced drilling and extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal/directional drilling, and are increasingly displacing coal for the nation’s electricity generation.

Looks like the increasers far outweigh the decreasers, so losing battle.

[Toogoodman]

Because per-capita tells you how efficient and effective your country is in terms of reducing emissions. If you don't look at it per-capita, you're looking at population levels more than you're looking at how good emissions regulations or reductions are in that country.

If you're not looking at it per-capita, then you're trying to argue that a small island nation that burns coal for heat and runs their 1950s-era cars 24/7 are "more environmentally sound" than a heavily-green-focused country with a population of tens of millions.

Not using per-capita analysis is an attempt to misrepresent national efforts to reduce emissions.

Otherwise, you're suggesting that splitting China up into 50 mini-Chinas under a collective trade agreement like the EU would completely fix the problem of China's emissions, even if we change literally nothing else. Because none of those 50 new countries has enough of a share of that prior total to really be that big a deal, by itself. Does that make sense? Or does it seem like an attempt to manipulate the facts?

Using per capita in this case skews the data, because we are talking about VERY different countries with VERY different stands of living for the general population. While china has combated a lot of its extreme poverty among its people (88% of Chinese in the 90's were living in EXTREME poverty), the standard of living is still extremely low. People aren't producing a large carbon footprint if they have no means to do so. Here in the US, even our poor have cell phones, internet, (not everyone has clean water which is an abomination), access to education, etc. If youre poor in China, I feel very bad for you, because you're not getting a cell phone and a chance at a decent job.

I'm not saying the US is a beacon of efficiency, but were certainly the world leaders in green energy. We are trying to lower our footprints in leaps and bounds, and I would say close to half the states are really pushing for greener energy (yes, even a lot red states like Texas). We absolutely fall short in the area of recycling, which contributes a TON to our per capita carbon footprint, and there really isn't an excuse for our excessive use of landfills and non-recycling. I know for my household personally, we break up ~80% of our trash into recyclables.

[NED funded]

Hence the lower numbers on a per capita-basis. Also worth noting that because China exports much of it's produced goods to the west the "real" CO2-footprint per Chinese person could be lower.

Only because of the staggering inequality in the Country. If you were to divide the country in half, east and west, one side would drastically increase its per capita emissions.

For example. this is a map of coal power plants in China via the FT:



Its the perils of relying in per capita measures miss this sort of details. And much of the recent increase in China has nothing to do with it producing more to satisfy Western consumers and more with the recent stimulus the Chinese government did.

[Endus]

Using per capita in this case skews the data, because we are talking about VERY different countries with VERY different stands of living for the general population.

You're completely wrong on principle, because comparing per-capita results is what lets you compare those two different countries, without total population affecting the numbers for no justifiable reason.

While china has combated a lot of its extreme poverty among its people (88% of Chinese in the 90's were living in EXTREME poverty), the standard of living is still extremely low. People aren't producing a large carbon footprint if they have no means to do so. Here in the US, even our poor have cell phones, internet, (not everyone has clean water which is an abomination), access to education, etc. If youre poor in China, I feel very bad for you, because you're not getting a cell phone and a chance at a decent job.

This isn't relevant to anything, and isn't something that wasn't understood in the first place.

I'm not saying the US is a beacon of efficiency, but were certainly the world leaders in green energy

Flat-out false. China has some of the highest numbers of wind generation in place, whether in absolute numbers or per-capita, and plenty of EU nations are working hard to shift much of their energy production to green renewables. Here in Ontario, we no longer use coal or oil generators, and are phasing out natural gas. The USA is not a "world leader in green energy", at all, by any metric.

We absolutely fall short in the area of recycling, which contributes a TON to our per capita carbon footprint, and there really isn't an excuse for our excessive use of landfills and non-recycling. I know for my household personally, we break up ~80% of our trash into recyclables.

I mean, as a for-instance, you're required to do that here. Garbage collection is separated into black box (paper and boxboard), blue box (recyclable plastics and glass), green bin (compostables), and bagged trash, along with some other as-needed items you can bundle up like cardboard, or seasonal stuff like yard waste.

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Only because of the staggering inequality in the Country. If you were to divide the country in half, east and west, one side would drastically increase its per capita emissions.

For example. this is a map of coal power plants in China via the FT:

Its the perils of relying in per capita measures miss this sort of details. And much of the recent increase in China has nothing to do with it producing more to satisfy Western consumers and more with the recent stimulus the Chinese government did.

Unsurprisingly, if you look at population density maps, they line up pretty closely;