They have vastly different CO2 emission goals according to what is 'fair', compare:

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/

with:

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/

Despite that China's CO2 emissions are increasing and the US emissions are decreasing, China meets its goal while the US does not.

The following page explains how these goals were set

https://climateactiontracker.org/methodology/comparability-o...

It doesn't track outcomes, it tracks policy. The China and India ratings make it clear that they aren't tracking effectiveness or whether the policies are even being implemented.

That's a small but hugely important distinction that I didn't see disclosed up front.

By that reasoning, the alcoholic who promises "to never drink again!" is on the right track even if he's at the bar drinking right now.

This is the main criticism with a lot of these comparisons. That it doesn't help us solve the problem but rather does virtue signaling. I think a better comparison is maps like these[0], though they don't tell the full story either. No one map will. Unsurprisingly, climate is a multifaceted and complex problem that is extremely difficult to solve and needs much more than policy to solve.

[0] https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...

Exactly. This is just alarmism.

Global temperatures are not influenced by yearly emissions. The driving factor of climate change are cumulative emissions over the last 2 centuries. China is a huge emitter but their emissions only started rising 20 years ago. [0] Their cumulative emissions are still significantly below USA.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fo...

I would guess poorer countries' citizens produce less co2 per capita due to using less resources?