> China population is 4 times of US

This is a fair criticism of per capita US emissions.

> a lot of CO2 there comes from US outsourcing energy-intensive production

This is not a reasonable indictment of US per capita emissions. China chooses to manufacture for the US and the world. Consumption, by the US, but importantly, also the rest of the world would be less if China didn't do cheap manufacturing at scale.

~15% of PRC emissions are attributed to exports. On the other hand 0% of US oil and lng exports are attributed to US emissions. Entire shale revolution is literal energy intensive production, it's just attributed to importers not exporters in accounting. In another world, emission accounting would be territorial - renewables would be credited to producer, carbon would be taxed to extractor.

Reasonable framing is PRC is emitting a lot simply because it has 4x people, exports are not substantial contributor, with caveat their population is declining. US is emitting more than what accounting shows, while also adding more increasing pop with higher per capita emissions. Probably not reasonable to criticize countries for population growth, but pretty fair to point out US (and other fossil exporters) should have exports count towards emissions, conversely, PRC renewable exports should be credited.

Instead they're being punished for producing the panel that saves other people emissions. For comparison US exported ~5 billion BOE / barrels of oil equivalent per year, PRC exported 0.5 BOE in solar, which translates to displacing 15 billion BOE assuming 30 year life span. In real world, PRC renewable exports is displacing 3x more emission than US fossil exports generate. That 15b BOE is larger than PRC emissions via exports, i.e. for all intents and purpose PRC export is now (substantial) net carbon sink, it's a global decarbonization utility. Meanwhile US chooses to be export fossil to the world.

Climate doesn't care about population or per capita metrics. The only metric that matters is CO2 PPM.

So all China needs to do is split in two to halve their emissions?

No, all China has to do, is to emmit the same CO2/land mass as the USA (or better, as the EU).

> CO2/land mass as the USA

I'm trying, but really struggling, to understand your logic of anchoring on land area.

Can you explain why you think that's a better metric than per capita? Is it because there are climate-changing emissions that are NOT driven by humans (e.g. seasonal wildfires, volcanic eruptions, etc.)? Or is it something else?

The amount of emissions that the planet can take (a that is the real crux of the problem) is what its ecosystems can offset.

It’s very hard to calculate exactly how much the ecosystem inside a country borders can offset, but a good enough metric is its landmass.

Sure, countries like Morrocos will win with this metric and countries like Brasil will lose. But in the end, it’s much better than rewarding what is actually a problem (for climate) like if it was some virtue: high birth rates.

Thanks for explaining your thinking.

> It’s very hard to calculate exactly how much the ecosystem inside a country borders can offset, but a good enough metric is its landmass.

I think this is a flawed basis, because weather patterns, sea rise, etc. don't honor country borders. Only highly localized pollution is somewhat "constrained", but country borders are even porous to that.

So I still don't know that it is an effective incentive to find a better balance. Per capita also has its problems, like penalizing less-developed countries from developing their societies, industries.

So if they annex Mongolia and Siberia, their emissions went massively down?

Nah.

What?

My point is that people tend to turn emissions into a pissing contest about which country is emitting more, and it always becomes a debate of total emission vs. per capita, because it's ultimately a political issue.

What I'm saying is that total emissions are what matter for climate change.

Total emissions matter on a global scale. To know approximately how much each nation ought to adjust their emissions we need to look at per capita adjusted for imports/exports for products and services consumed locally but created remotely.

You said per capita doesn’t matter.

If China split evenly into two new countries, each country’s emissions are half what China’s was.

This is why per capita matters.

Climate doesn't care about climate change, humans do. Only worthwhile metric is what geopolitics agree on, right now that's per capita emissions even though it's lenient vs historic emitters.

The traditional HN solution for Climate Change: If they only had more babies in the USA, their CO2 per capita emissions would fall and we would save the planet!

These 5th column arguments, are just appaling. USA (and EU, if we finally wake up and smell the coffee) don't have to pay for Asian high birthrates.

If a country has the same area as another, I expect that country to stick to the same total emissions.

China doesn't have to pay for it's high birthrates in the past? Well, then the West doesn't have to pay for their inovation and productivity in the past as well.

while even people born in Asian countries like me would like to go back 3-4 generations and forcefully reduce birthrates, it is not a problem as simple as it seems.

By that logic Canada, Australia, NZ, and arguably even US are settled places and should not be counted.

I do agree that every goalpost can be moved by drawing the boundary as you wish, but surely the fact that developed countries enjoyed a good standard of living for 100+ years and contributed more for a long time counts for something