Trump is indirectly solving climate change
The title is a bit misleading as there are only around 60 democratic states that meet to discuss fossil fuel exit. The majority of governments, including the the world’s biggest polluters, are missing, particularly China and the US.
The world needs to catch up to China on renewable energy not the other way around.
China, the world’s biggest polluter, is among the countries that refused to join the group aiming to phase out fossil fuels.
China manufactures the most goods though… by a lot, and that’s going to be pollution intensive. They are a pretty populated country as well.
US, oil producing countries, Europe are generally a lot worse than China on a per capita consumption basis.
The group of 60 states that discuss the fossil fuel phase out as described in the linked article formed during the latest COP last year in Brazil as the majority of governments refused to commit to an end of fossil fuels. China and the US were among these countries.
US, oil producing countries, Europe are generally a lot worse than China on a per capita consumption basis.
If we look at the CO₂ emissions per capita of the world’s top 30 economies by GDP, China sits at number 9 with 8.7 tons per year and person (in 2024). This is more than double the global average and more than any European country except Russia.
China’s climate action’s are also highly insufficient, including against the country’s fair share regarding its National Determined Contributions (NDCs). It’s not that Europe is on track to achieve the Paris goals, but it’s much better than China.
Despite a rise in renewable energy investments, coal has re-emerged as an ongoing force in China’s power system in recent years for a variety of reasons, and this is also clearly embedded in Beijing’s recently released new 15th Five-Year Plan.
It’s time that Europe revives its own renewable energy industry. Environmental laws regarding production and consumption are much stronger in Europe than in China, and so it is better for Europe from a security point of view.
I should clarify, im not trying to let China off the hook.
But production based CO2 per capita is not the only metric. Europe (for example) has outsourced dirty production to China, so they look clean, but it’s people in Europe consuming the products China is producing, so it should be on their ledger.
If you look at CO2 from a consumption basis China falls down the list below Europe.
Now… I suppose consumption based metrics better align with peoples behaviors (ie Europeans are more damaging to the environment than Chinese on average).
On the other hand, production metrics point to European countries having stricter environmental policies than China. which to be fair is what you are highlighting. I’m trying to say, yes, but China is manufacturing way more for other countries.
Stricter policies is part of what pushed manufacturing out (and labour costs). Easier to do when you are a service economy.
