In the comment you replied to, it says

> A wealthy and prosperous nation doesn't want coal and can afford the cost of switching to alternatives.

AFAICT, China is a wealthy and prosperous nation, and by nation we mean the state, but the same cannot be said for the people. I could be wrong but that's how I see things through media. If that's correct, then it means that there are just too many people and even China still cannot afford to use clean energy for all.

The elephant in the room has to be mentioned too: They are producing for the rest of the world, enabling the west not to look like an environmental disaster.

India: Hold my beer

More seriously, while China has been slowly cleaning up its act, India is still steadily getting worse. 15 of the world's top 20 most polluted cities are now in India, with Pakistan and Bangladesh accounting for 3 more, and only 2 in China:

https://www.iqair.com/world-most-polluted-cities

Caveat: the definition of "city" is a bit debatable here, with most of those 15 actually a part of greater Delhi's urban sprawl. But it's notable that none of China's megacities make it into the top 50, with the top offenders being primarily remote centers of heavy industry.

not exactly, US outsourced polluting manufacturing to China and anything that could be done cheaper there through less regulations.

Of course they will pollute more.

Also, they're not exactly a democracy so people don't have much of a choice anyway. I'm pretty sure they're not exactly happy either. (last time I visited I had a coughing fit in shanghai and the sky was gray-ish)

Environmental regulations, like air quality, water treatment is a lot tougher these days. Air and water quality has been improving for the past 7 years. These days a lot of people are giving approvals for increase environmental quality, though much work has to be done. I feel people outside don't understand how china's political system works at all. We support democracy, it's just that we think there could be different governance structures to achieve democracy and more effective governance. A lot of people, like environmental scientists, are in position of power to make changes to regulations and policy. At the same time, we are doing things to mitigate negatives of climate regulations such as increasing hassle, more costs to businesses and so on that climate regulations deniers use as excuses. It's very comprehensive.

Where I'm from used to be communist... I have a good idea how it works... There's a way the country presents itself to its people and outside and the reality is most often very different.

Not per capita, though

Chinese citizens emit more CO2 per capita than citizens from the EU, and since 2013.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/science-enviro...

I really hate to write this, but this is outsourced CO2 from EU. EU manufacturing is dead. I look at my home office around me - everything is made in China. Some pieces of furniture are EU made, but the rest - made in China things. Old Tektronix scope is “made in USA”, but it is really old.

Old numbers from the top of my head:

14% China's emissions can be directly attributed to Chinese exports. The domestic economy is a much bigger source of pollution, unless of course you consider the entirety of China a western colony that only exists to export products to the west. I consider the latter option untenable.

How much of the CO2 per capita that China emits goes into making products for EU/US citizens? Is that factored in?

Probably not. We want to feel good about ourselves, so we twist the numbers in our favor and can point at China as a "reason" not to change anything here.

China produces more things than the rest of the world. It is super easy to stop them, just stop buying anything they produce.