China's per capita CO2 emissions are still 1/2 that of the U.S. More importantly, neither the Chinese government nor powerful Chinese politicians deny anthropogenic climate change. And they've recently recommitted to nuclear energy expansion despite growing public fear after Fukushima and a subsequent rise in costs as Chinese regulatory policies became more strict.

Part of the reason for the gap in nuclear construction in recent years, separate from Fukushima, seems to have been growing trade tensions with the U.S. Now that construction and approvals have resumed, it seems like China has decided to ditch almost all foreign designs and only build their "homegrown" AP1000 derivative. Unlike American politicians, Chinese politicians haven't forgotten the art of turning lemons into lemonade. Nuclear, solar, electric cars--they're using the transition to bolster and develop their industrial sectors. As countries should be making many of these investments anyhow to hedge and supplement the often myopic and short-sighted pursuits of the free market, the net costs to abandoning the fossil fuel economy can be significantly reduced. (In retrospect the contracts for American nuclear plants were probably handouts, anyhow, intended to mitigate balance of trade tensions. But with all goodwill having been burned to ash by the current administration, not to mention the collapse of the American nuclear construction industry, it became a pointless gesture.)

Not entirely unrelated, China is also building a system of high-speed long-distance trains like few countries have. There will be a time after the individual gas-powered car. I guess it will be propelled electrically, but it's quite likely that the power will come from an overhead line.

Mother nature doesn't handicap for overpopulation.

The earth has a carrying capacity, locally, regionally and globally, and a high population density does nothing to increase it.

> China's emissions are approximately double the US's and growing.

China's population is 1.4 billion compared to 330 million for the US though. Surely you should be comparing this relative to population size (China is four times bigger) and countries with smaller emissions per person should be recognised as doing well?

Are you seriously proposing that CO2 be capped per country, as opposed to per capita?

That's a fascinating proposal.

I don't think that will be particularly favorable to the US, though. There are 195 countries in the world, yet the US accounts for 14% of all of the world's emissions.

You have to look at who is polluting the most. If country A represents 2x the emissions of country B, then it's twice as important to curb their pollution.

Country borders mean nothing to the planet in ecological terms. How about looking at emissions per square kilometer as a target, but focusing treaty efforts on the largest CO2 emitting countries (or coalitions of countries that can be dealt with as a block)?

> If country A represents 2x the emissions of country B, then it's twice as important to curb their pollution.

Capping emissions per capita accomplishes just that. Why are you so opposed to it?

> How about looking at emissions per square kilometer as a target

So, Canada (Population 38 million) should get to pollute three times more, in absolute values than India (Population 1.35 billion), because it has three times the land area?

> Country borders mean nothing to the planet in ecological terms.

Country borders don't mean anything to the planet, but they mean everything to how we must solve this problem.

People need energy to live.

The world has a limited carbon budget.

Distributing it equally, per capita is the least you can do to be fair about it. (In order to actually be fair about it, you must also count historic emissions, which means that the western world has long blown its share of that budget.)

You're confusing is with ought.

It's not that Canada "should get to" pollute more than India. Canada can pollute more than India and still have the effects absorbed by its environment. Canada has vast forests absorbing CO2 on a scale sufficient to mostly counteract the harmful effects caused by its relatively sparse population. India doesn't have those vast forests, and its population is enormous.

I'm making no claim that it should be this way. It is this way.

Despite emitting more CO2 per capita, Canada is putting a negligible strain on the planet compared to India, the US, or especially China.