China's emissions per capita are half that of the US, and it seems very reasonable that they would see an increase in carbon emissions as the average standard of living goes up. The US is only aiming for carbon neutral by 2050, and we have less work to do and more money to do it with. I'm no fan of China, but I think we're on the same page regarding renewables.

That's all well and good, but your real problem is that both of those pages fall well after the book is closed on being able to make a real difference. I also forgot to note that India has only committed to net zero emissions by 2070, and that's far too late to avoid serious issues.

Per capita emissions don't matter for the atmosphere, aggregate emissions do. Yes this makes big population a liability, but it is what it is.

They matter if we're asking whether China is on the US' side on this.

China's people shouldn't be forced to live in worse conditions because they live in more populous nation. You could split China into two countries with US-level emissions, and we'd be in exactly the same place globally.

> China's people shouldn't be forced to live in worse conditions because they live in more populous nation

According to the logic of degrowth, they should be forced to live in conditions that allow for net zero total emissions of the country they live in. If anything, it should be easier for them because they're a unitary dictatorship, so can degrow by edict. I can't see how not focusing on China in that regard can make sense, they're emitting more currently, they are rapidly increasing their emissions (unlike the US), and they have a great potential to increase it much higher because they have lots more people. Therefore any degrowth strategy should be first and foremost applied to curb their emissions, yet somehow the conversation is always derailed into useless per-capita emissions that do nothing to the planet.

> You could split China into two countries with US-level emissions

Well first of all, two wouldn't suffice. It's at least three, and I think it might even be four. And with a bunch of mini-Chinas, there'd be more competition for where manufacturing happens, and it could drive emissions down the same way that breaking up a monopoly drives price down.

By Wikipedia's 2019 numbers (14 Gt China/6.6 Gt US) you'd need 2.12 mini-Chinas.

The article I was remembering was https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57018837 in which case the result of the division is 2.45. But in any case, since you can't have a fraction of a country in this context, you would indeed need 3 for each one to have lower emissions than the US.