Comment by maxglute

> China has tripled its population by close to 3 times post WW2. ... > So it is by no degree justified for China to expect the same level per capita energy usage as United States.

Global policy coordination on Climate change focus on per capita goals post PRC population explosion, which is only metric countries can agreed. PRC absolutely has justification to expect same per capita energy usage, not just current, but historical, that is multiple times current because historical per capita actual factors in accumulation of wealth/capital/infra. Hence PRC emission rivalling developing EU countries, they're pouring centuries worth of concrete in a few years to catch up on infra, which is right of any nation behind on developing curve.

On topic of population flows, since PRC population decreasing, and US is increasing via immigration, and each US immigrant naturally adopts high per capita emissions, it's only "fair" that US also stops immigration. Of course that too is absurd. As is any proposal that that PRC would should limit fossil fuel usage to per capita levels below US and west. Ultimately, we both recognize neither US nor PRC has any interest in "playing along" because they benefit from increasing fossil usage.

The original comment was merely highlighting that US by virtue of becoming net exporter of crude + lng is increasing fossil fuel usage comparable to PRC. And that really EU is the only actor who has stagnated emission, but that's more due to policy failure than anything. US net contribution to fossil usage is anything but stagnate both in terms of industry and demographics. And unlike PRC trends which has peak/tipping points, US population increase + fuel exports will keep US as the largest per capita contributer to climate crisis. US is increasing ceiling for what is acceptable per capita for large country. And until that changes, no one else will be incentivized to settle at fraction of US per capita. If anything it would justify PRC start mass exporting coal once they're done their green transition.