[1] As somebody has pointed out below - a lot of those Chinese emissions are ultimately produced for use in other countries.
Places like the UK have simply shipped their emissions overseas - then complain about these countries rising emissions.
It's easy to have the highest growth if you start from nowhere - when somebody quotes growth you should instantly be on guard for BS. For example the US could have gone from 1000 to 1020, and China from 200 to 220 - focusing on the larger percentage increase from China is rather missing the point.
You are also forgetting total carbon emissions over the lifetime of a country - developed countries are responsible for a lot of the carbon in the atmosphere - and while developing countries might be catching up in day to day emissions they are nowhere in catching up in total emissions.
Your first paragraph is so strange, given my link and the source showing China is already responsible for +30% of global ghg emissions.
This is directly to your point. You ironically have US and China flipped, and China is largest AND fastest growing.
And cumulative emissions? Another ironic critique, given China is by far the largest and fastest growing emitter. Assuming you agree with the 1.5C target increase, we have a limited budget. Allowing a catchup (cumulative/per capita?) isn't sustainable to achieve climate goals.
...and they're also #1 by far on GHG emissions, which doesn't offset even proportionally.
It's like saying Bob might be a murderer, but...he's really works hard to teach each Sunday during Bible study. You're just moving the goalpost (and you never acknowledged how your initial critique about number sense was off base).
> Sure. But the current US position is to leave the Paris accords and drill baby drill
Whataboutism fallacy on top of recency bias, i.e., the US has been the largest producer of natgas since 2009 and petro since 2013.
Meanwhile, you can't defend how that or the cumulative argument (which you abandoned) is relevant. I've acknowledged and pointed out the flaws in these points.
Edit: I'll also note that your undefined sense of "fairness" over accountability doesn't take into account how China is using slave labor and Uygurs to build PVs.
It's you that's trying to move the goalposts - the original post was about per capita emissions - and it's indisputable that the US puts out more using that metric.
And in terms of prison labour ( another attempt at mis-direction by you ) - slave labour is effectively still legal in the US - the US has the largest prison population in the world ( by far ) and compulsory work from prisoners is legal.
So the US just moved from explicit slave labour, to imprisoning people and forcing them to work...... and yes - if you are from a particular racial minority you are much more likely to be subjected to this....
The total world prison population is estimated at around 11.5 million.
China is second - with about 1.7 million - however that's at a rate of about 1/5 of the US.
It's legal to force those 1.8 million to work in the US and some states don't even compensate - and in addition your something like 6 times more likely to suffer it if you black.
So you have a legally endorsed method of forcing people to work in the US, often without any pay - just saying if it quacks and walks like a duck.....
LOL! You can't even switch topics without being wrong. Your figure comes from this report [0], which disputes your China figure.
> Figures for [...] China are incomplete[...] The China figures are for sentenced prisoners only. Figures for pre-trial detention and other forms of detention are not available; more than 650,000 were so held in 2009 (Supreme People’s Procuratorate). In addition, it is widely reported that more than a million Uighur Muslims are detained in camps in Xinjiang province.
Still avoiding the key point that the US has 2.5x more people per capita incarcerated than even China with all it's political prisoners - and the US legally can force these people to work against their will.
You threw shades at China for incarnating too many of it's own people, and being a key greenhouse gas emitter - both are true - I'm just pointing out that for both of those areas - the US beats China around 2:1 on a per capita basis if you look at the numbers.
The US incarceration numbers in particular are extraordinary - about 1 in 7 of the worlds prison population is in the US. I'd be interested in your opinion of why that is.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
[1] As somebody has pointed out below - a lot of those Chinese emissions are ultimately produced for use in other countries. Places like the UK have simply shipped their emissions overseas - then complain about these countries rising emissions.