Comment by andsoitis
> 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.