I am form the EU and I don't "manage" anything. It just happens that on average, Europe has more efficient infrastructure, more strict regulation on pollution and is massively supporting green energy.
Don't be fooled to believe that your personal life-choices will make the difference. In most countries 50% of all emissions are determined by the electricity you are consuming with transportation coming in second.
The US used to be a railroad country. But that was bad for big oil, cars and aircraft so it was dismantled.
When it comes to being forced to drive in the US, sure, but everything in the US from cars to buildings to meals is massively oversized compared to Europe. That's a personal choice. Many americans also proudly vote against environmental legislation or public transport infrastructure. That's also a personal choice. Blaming big oil for that is just an excuse.
That alone cannot explain why the US pollutes twice as much. And as I have said, most of pollution comes from energy production. You are missing the mark.
However, your point is irrelevant as you have insufficient data to prove it. Stating that the average US citizen consumes twice as much is quite a daring that needs to be proven.
Personal life choices do make a difference. Do you drive a fuel efficient car or an oversized pickup truck? Do you take the bike or train instead of the car? Do you go on vacation by plane? Is your home insulated, and how high do you turn up the heat?
All of those things do matter. But of course they're not the whole story; plenty of industries pollute far more than consumers do. Regulations matter. And regulations, taxes and subsidies can do a lot to help both consumers and corporations to make better choices. I'd like to see heavy taxes on all fossil fuels, and the revenue from those taxes spent on increasing clean energy capacity.
It's politicians, and indirectly voters, who decide the way forward. Big oil companies might lobby and promote their stuff, but at the end of the day it's bad decisions by politicians and voters.
I think it’s more complicated than that. It’s pretty easy to live in most western European cities without a car. It’s almost impossible to live well in most American cities without several cars per family. America has been engineers around environmentally unfriendly habits. Today’s consumer has little to do with the massive foundation on which their society rests.
Edit: my family has only one car, but it’s because I hate driving / commuting and have worked remotely for 10 years. If I had to drive to work, we’d have two cars.
Yeah. I do all those things. I'm vegan and I have a single car, and I support local walking and biking trails. But even so, I bet I'm not as green as the average European because I still have to drive far more than they do.
One of the structural reasons is that US produces most of it's own energy (aka hydrocarbons) and has enough left to export, while afaik EU imports 50% of the energy it needs.
Most people in either region are not making any significant effort. They just live their lives like everyone else around them. The difference is in what that looks like.
Anyway, what's with this dichotomy "corporations should change behavior" vs. "consumers should change behavior"? Those two interact and influence each other. Obviously, both must change their behavior. This is a process that must be bootstrapped.
That's definitely true and top-down regulation is important so the whole economy has to clean up its act and it's not a competitive disadvantage for any one company to do it.
However, I don't like this frequently repeated claim that "it's actually big companies that are polluting!". They're polluting on our behalf, that's not an excuse.
It is more along the lines of "I can't do much personally against big companies". In the same way that you can't just "personally" create a better public transport system instead of driving.
And big oil & friends are massively lobbying to keep it just the way it is. It's easy to buy a senator, in same cases 10k are all you need to get his support.
Edit: Since the maximum nesting was reached. I will leave it at saying that "A party system is twice as good as a one party system".
In addition to US salaries being higher, energy (petrol and gas and electricity, each of them) are significantly more expensive in Europe.
Random US person, imagine if your salary was cut in half, auto gas cost $6/gallon, and your monthly utility bill tripled. You'd think hard about your consumption.
The average EU consumer causes 7.5t emissions of CO2 per year.
This is a structural difference, not one of consumers.
They want you to blame the individual so the big actors can keep pocketing big money.