Reading suggests that much of the coal-plant building in China of late is purposed as backup-only, and that their vast expansion of clean energy production overall is swallowing almost all power demand in that country. Accordingly, if you look at the figures we have, China's emissions are relatively stable in recent years.

According to the European Commission’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), China and India combined (~35.5% of the human population) account for roughly 38% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Which is indeed an overshoot, albeit not of terribly epic proportions.

However, per-capita - on both a 100-year-effect and a 20-year-effect timeframe - the USA is easily the leader in emissions per person, and the USA also records the largest absolute increases ongoing.

The figures, which already take the variable potency/effect of different gas types into account, show annual per-person greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2 equivalent) of 17.3 Tonnes-per-person (USA), 11.1 Tpp (China), 5.6 Tpp (EU27), 2.2 Tpp (India) on the 100 year impact scale.

On the 20 year impact scale ("the amount 1 person releases in 1 year will trap the same amount of heat as XX tonnes of pure carbon-dioxide would"), which much better takes into account the balance of current agricultural practices etc, the USA = 21.5 Tpp, China = 15.8, EU = 6.8, India = 4.1.

The United States also recorded the largest absolute increase between 2024 and 2025 (+131.5 Mt CO2eq, or +2.2%), followed by Indonesia (+16.1 Mt CO2eq, or +1.2%).

So, any message which - when translated through the lens of practical reality - is essentially saying to the developing world "Please either tighten your belts, or be less populous" seems a very challenging expectation, if not outright-unviable by almost any other metric or ethic.

See plenty of attention to the relative impact of US consumption below, but fundamentally you've got to get your own house in order before you start whining about your neighbor's. The US has largely refused to even think about addressing climate change through energy policy, we've been using the excuse you repeat for the last 30+ years. I think you are the person being unserious here.

With a global economy where products are imported from elsewhere, local pollution statistics that do not include that indirect pollution as their own are meaningless. Energy imports are also being abused for report purposes.

China also deployed over 300 GW of solar last year, not to mention that EVs are really taking off there. I’d prefer if if they deployed zero coal, but I don’t think it’s the same as “building like we did”.

I was shamed by another parents for giving my 9 month old a bath a few years ago because it’s a waste of water. The corporate line of shifting blame onto the do-gooder consumer has been a stunning success

Any plan that tells China and India "stay poor" is also fundamentally unserious. Why is it fairer for their populations to be without electricity than rich countries? You may wish for them to not burn coal but wishing doesn't do anything.

So. Do you propose to massively subsidize solar and batteries for all developing countries? That's the only thing that has a chance of working.

Anything else is dead on arrival. They will tell you politely to fuck off, and they will be in the right.

Without money how will they "ameliorate the effects of climate change"? Rich countries didn't help them prevent climate change, so why would poor countries think they'd get help to deal with it when it arrives?

Who is this "we" that will confront people that use less when the "we" use massively more themselves.

per capita energy use in MJ ( Mega Joules)

USA 300,000 MJ per person.

India 28,000 MJ per person

China 130, 000 MJ per person

I don't disagree with you, but this is why nothing will happen and everyone has been planning for a 2-2.5C breach by 2050.

China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia. Brazil, Nigeria, and others are continuing to build out capacity. While this capacity is much more green than past buildouts, it's still in aggregate going to have a significant downstream impact on overall GHG emissions.

It doesn't matter who deploys more renewables or less when countries like China, India, and others continue to expand coal and ONG at reduced but still significant rates.

But they can morally push back and say North America, Europe and Japan industrialized via similar externalities.

And the reality is countries don't care. This is why China is now export controlling solar technology and IP [0] at the expense of India and other large members of the global south.

The reality is most countries are going to rush as much capacity as they can until the externalities can no longer be ignored en masse (probably by 2040-45).

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-16/china-mov...

It's absurd how even surrounded by wealth, an abundance of resources, and a beautiful natural environment; we continue this frenetic hustle culture of committing ourselves to collectively overworking our planet and society, like coked up hamsters on a wheel.

There's numerous times I've thought of checking out with the (little) wealth I have and becoming a hitch-hiking vagrant and enjoying my time in nature with friends instead.