By that argument China should be releasing more CO2, unless you have a reason why Chinese people shouldn't have the same quality of life as Americans.

Or build more nuclear, solar and wind plants, which they're doing.

First, you said

> If Americans emitted the same per capita rate as China, they would have a lower standard of living.

Then, you said

> Or build more nuclear, solar and wind plants, which they[China]'re doing.

So... the US could reduce their carbon footprint massively by doing the same, while maintaining standards of living? Good to see we are in agreement, and China is not the problem atm.

It really depends on how "standard of living" is measured in the first place. I live in Europe and make top 5% percentile income, live a pretty decent life that doesn't require a car, in a very energy-efficient apartment. In the US I would likely not have that option, would likely be forced to have a car, would have less vacation days, would have to navigate a nightmarishly complicated healthcare system, and survive some school shootings. Yes, I would make more money, potentially live in a bigger house, but it is debatable if that would automatically be a higher living standard.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning: for a huge chunk of Americans, living an European standard of living would be a huge improvement.

> This shouldn't be the argument anyway.

Why not? The reverse sounds more insightful:

If the rest of the world adopts and American standard of life, emissions would be much higher.

Should we expect the world to adopt a sub-US standard of living forever, or should we address the impacts of our standard of living?

If the rest of world adopts the American standard of life, that means technology continues to progress, and there's a lot more highly educated people innovating. Given that sustainability and climate change are serious concerns now, I don't agree that it will continue to be a bad thing.

Right, because the thing that is missing that will enable everyone to innovate is being able to drive a 3 ton monstrosity to the nearest (~4 miles) drive thru Starbucks.

This assumes a novel technological solution exists at all, which today is unfortunately still a big unknown. I'm hopeful too, but I'm not sure we can afford to make that our plan.

Thinking about it, another assumption implicit in both of our positions is that emissions and standard of living are directly related. I bet we could address this is other ways. I have restaurants and bars about a mile from where I live, if I could get there without crossing multiple four lane roads I'd drive a lot less and be a lot healthier.

Maybe our technological solutions already exist...