How did you cherry pick that list? The actual top countries per capita from your source are:

  Qatar 40.1
  Trinidad & Tobago 37.78
  Kuwait 34.24
  Netherlands Antilles 23.55
  Brunei Darussalam 22.96
  United Arab Emirates 22.31
  Aruba 21.59
  Luxembourg 21.34
  ...

But looking at the total, rather than per-capita, carbon emissions makes more sense if we want to actually cut total carbon emissions.

Here is the list of top CO2 emitting countries:

  China 10,877.2
  United States 5,107.4
  India 2,454.8
  Russia 1,764.9
  Japan 1,320.8
  Germany 796.5
  South Korea 673.3
  Iran 671.5
  ...

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... , which cites the source https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/fossil-co2-emissions...

But then why look at total per year. Calculate the cumulative total since the start of the industrial revolution. That number is relevant for the situation we're in today.

It's somewhat useful to know how much we did in the us but you can't go back in time and change what the us did from 1900-2000. I don't get the point. We can all only change what we emit now and into the future.

It would be fair if the ones who did all the pollution (and also got the benefits from it) would clean the mess up now.

I think the idea is that even if all the current top emitters do take initiative, China and India's emissions are expected to grow quickly. The losses will win over the gains.

The way one frames it inevitably biases the resulting opinion.

If you think in terms of net change relative to a given level of emissions at some year... eu bad, US badder, China & India Terrible.

If you think in terms of "every person is entitled to X emissions per year," where X is current or desired average emissions (inc 0-emissions) then... China & India are best, EU & US are bad.

The more nationalistically we think of these things, the more nationalistic they seem and become.

It’ll only grow as fast as the “1st world” keeps consuming and off-shoring to avoid regulation. So where’s their initiative?

> It’ll only grow as fast as the “1st world” keeps consuming and off-shoring to avoid regulation

That's quite outdated; there's a huge internal market in China, India, etc, and plenty of trade between the non-"1st world" countries. In fact, the US did have an initiative to reduce consumption from there (in the form of tariffs) and it didn't impact their economy much.

Just as an example, China now has about as many cars as the US. And the market there keeps growing, whereas the US has mostly plateaued.

If they still manage less CO per capita w/ their exports plus internal market, that weakens the argument that emissions control is primarily a 3rd world responsibility.

That little table is the only place where China looks good with regards to CO2 emissions. If the US had 4x the population, ceteris paribus, we'd have even lower CO2 "per capita" than China. Doesn't change one bit the fact that China emits 40% more CO2 than the next biggest polluter.

China is also the world's factory floor, producing most of what's bought by people in the US and Australia, and in effect taking big part of their responsibility. Considering that, the fact it's only 1.4x of US emissions is a miracle.

If "1st world" were truly worried, they would stop buying or stop off-shoring. Saying "3rd world lacks initiative" as if it's a national issue is a joke.

> Saying "3rd world lacks initiative" as if it's a national issue is a joke.

Yeah, I definitely said that. Continue being mad at me and America.