In 2017, US had largest decline in CO2 emissions

[Raelbo]

@Hubcap

This is very illuminating to see which countries are getting dirtier and cleaner each year.

While it's certainly encouraging to see the USA improving, this graph cleverly hides the fact that the USA outputs 8 400 million tons to China's 7 400 million tons (you can do the maths if you look at the numbers and percentages). Considering the fact that China has a population more than 4 times that of the USA, the the per capita CO2 emissions of the Chinese is about 1/5 of Americans.

Another point to consider is that a lot of the CO2 emissions attributable to China are from manufacturing of goods that are consumed/used by the west. I think we need to be very careful before patting ourselves on the back too soon. This is the right direction to be moving in, but a massive amount of change still needs to be achieved before a country like the USA can claim to be "green".

[Deleted]

Its like have a heavily overweight person on 300kg that louse 3 kg and then think he is a good example of healthiness, becuse he can point on a overweight person on 150kg that did gain 3kg....

This is only self-delusion to not need to reduce emissions more.....

[Raelbo]

That's a lot of time. A senior graduation from high school could've entered college and graduated with a bachelors in 4 years.

CO2 emissions in the US are lower than what you posted.

Not significantly. Last year they dropped by 0.5%, so a 1-2% drop is the most you can expect. The USA is still waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out in front when it comes to emissions

[PL-Cibo]

That's a lot of time. A senior graduation from high school could've entered college and graduated with a bachelors in 4 years.

CO2 emissions in the US are lower than what you posted.

and what's your point? 4 Years may be a long time for a person, but for climate? Nope absolutely irrelevant. some percentiles in one subsystem do not make a difference. And when we're already talking about it: in your first post you talk about CO2 production of energy generation only. where are the statistics for the complete production of CO2?

And even then, where is the per person production(which says a lot more about it) Control of Opinion in form of a study.

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

where do you see a large increase? and the EU is not a single entity, it consists of member states which make their own policies . I know it's hard for an us citizen to understand, but there are different states in the world, and different pacts. Protip: before reading statistics, learn how to interpret them and always search for a second (or third) instance of the data, or you will get baited with wrong information as in this article above.

[Raelbo]

I don't know why the Chinese get a break on a per capita basis. We're divided up into nations and CO2 output is divided up by nations.

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.

It's not going to do the world much good if China keeps increasing CO2 emissions.

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.

[Deleted]

Europeans also love to smell their own farts, which could account for the rise in emission.

[Dezerte]

The US is the third largest country in the world population wise, if we added a billion people tomorrow we'd still be third largest.

I don't know why the Chinese get a break on a per capita basis. We're divided up into nations and CO2 output is divided up by nations. It's not going to do the world much good if China keeps increasing CO2 emissions.

They don't get a break, but the per capita-statistics gives you more context on the issue.

[Kiri]

Why do they stop there? I am sure they could list "random" US states too, in addition to the US in general, just like they listed Spain and the UK separately for no reason. But then again, the source might be kind of pro business, being the American Enterprise Institute.

Anyway, OP, how about you actually put this data into context of the Paris accord goals. You said it shows the US might meet them, make an actual point in that regard.

[HavokHeart]

Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Accords. Many leaders at the State level of government pledged to meet the levels promised DESPITE Trump's actions. Any reduction is not as a result of Trump's policies--considering he has done everything he could while in office to reduce regulations on businesses and reduce protections on the environment--and EVERYTHING to do with people standing up and telling Trump where to stick it.

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.

[Akka]

The regulations would have had detrimental impacts on economic growth.

Just wait until you take the full consequences of climate change in the face to talk about "detrimental impact on economic growth".

The price to prevent a disaster is always whole orders of magnitudes smaller than the price of fixing it. But drooling retards are always kicking the can down the road.

[Afrospinach]

[MENTION=1110841]This is very illuminating to see which countries are getting dirtier and cleaner each year.

CO2 Emissions are an almost unavoidable aspect of doing...stuff, hence why the largest, fastest growing economies on the planet who do all the manufacturing for everyone else like china and india are topping the charts(those less well to do EU countries are in there somewhere too). Everyone else is essentially outsourcing this to them.

[HavokHeart]

Just wait until you take the full consequences of climate change in the face to talk about "detrimental impact on economic growth".

The price to prevent a disaster is always whole orders of magnitudes smaller than the price of fixing it. But drooling retards are always kicking the can down the road.

Atmospheric Co2 levels will rise again (they were over 10 times higher 400 million years ago when a glaciation event occurred). Natural disasters will happen and have always happened. I don't care how many economies we flush down the toilet. Are humans impacting changes in climate? Of course. Will the world end because of it? No. Do we have control over it? Not as much as you think.

It's great to get behind a cause and I personally do what I can to reduce my carbon footprint but just don't think the solution is throwing money at it blindly. Clean energy is popular and companies will continue to put money into R&D (see the OP.. apparently this concept working to some extent). There is no need to throw more taxpayer money away.

You can insult anyone that doesn't agree with you but your claim that hurricanes, floods, drought and the like can be prevented is hilarious. These all occurred often even prior to industrialization.

[Teph]

Or maybe the US is/was in such a bad state, that they could easily reduce their output .

As someone said before. It's easier for an overweight person to lose lots of weight.

[Deleted]

Well, easy to reduce it when you have so many per capita ... it's like losing weight, a 500kg person loses 20kg when he/she doesn't eat for a week while a normal may not even be able to lose that much ...

EDIT: Oh I see someone already posted something like this! :P

[Hammerfest]

Why don't environmentalists want to invade/conquer/wipe-off-the-map China?

[Saphyron]

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.

It should really be based on percentage.
A country with a large number of people will obviously release a large amount of CO2 compared to a country with a low number of people.
Still nicely done USA.

[HumbleDuck]

This is a very very dumb post. You need to take overall emissions and per capita emissions in consideration to even form an opinion on the numbers you posted.

This is basic kindergarten level stuff.

[NED funded]

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.

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.

And for the record ita recent rise has nothing to do with ita industrialization ot os purely the result of careless government policy.

[Daedius]

But what if we take into account of the amount of off-shore manufacturing factories of products of US companies? Just shifting it elsewhere for the cheap capitalist profits...

[Toogoodman]

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/...e-environment/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enviro...administration
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/...184502851.html

But hey, stare at a single graph and ignore reality.

The thing is, this has almost nothing to do with Trump. We've been, as a country as a whole, charging full force into the green energy and clean fuels sphere for years now and have been the world leaders. In MA, we have solar farms EVERYWHERE, when I lived in Texas, there were 10's of thousands of wind turbines out along the I10 corridor that spans the entire state, brands like Tesla popping up... The US, despite Trumps incompetence in green energy, has been the leader in this category, while countries like Canada continue to shit on the US, yet have massive net increases in CO2 emissions...