So China’s per capita carbon footprint now almost equals that of the Europeans (7.2 and catching up to the Europeans’ 7.5 tonnes). It’s interesting: initially they increased their CO2 production to produce Western goods for our consumption in their country; effectively we transferred/off-shored our CO2 production to China along with our industrial production (and after we had developed our nations at everyone else’s cost) thus enabling the Chinese nation to become more economically able to start along the consumer path, which in turns drives up their CO2 production this time for internal consumption and internal development. Only a fifth of their emissions are now for the export market.Ah, but wait until China equals the carbon footprint of the Americans: 17.2 tonnes. Then we are in deep doo-dah.
So China’s per capita carbon footprint now almost equals that of the Europeans (7.2 and catching up to the Europeans’ 7.5 tonnes). It’s interesting: initially they increased their CO2 production to produce Western goods for our consumption in their country; effectively we transferred/off-shored our CO2 production to China along with our industrial production (and after we had developed our nations at everyone else’s cost) thus enabling the Chinese nation to become more economically able to start along the consumer path, which in turns drives up their CO2 production this time for internal consumption and internal development. Only a fifth of their emissions are now for the export market.Ah, but wait until China equals the carbon footprint of the Americans: 17.2 tonnes. Then we are in deep doo-dah.