The rise was most dramatic in Asia, where China’s emissions rose by 2.5 percent and India’s by 2.5 percent. The U.S.’s rose by 1.2 percent, while Europe’s continues to fall.
This is a fairly ridiculous statistic. The important number is not total emissions, but per capita emissions. Of course per capita emissions in India and China are going to rise before they fall.
If you look at per capita emissions, though...
United States: 16.5 metric tons per year
China: 7.5 kt/yr
India: 1.7 kt/yr
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PCSo an American uses 2.2x what a Chinese uses and 9.7x what an Indian uses. This number is merely "Carbon dioxide emissions are those stemming from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement. They include carbon dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels and gas flaring."
It does not include CO2 and methane emissions from animal husbandry. Since Americans eat way, way more beef than Chinese or Indians, you have to add that in too.
Obviously, we need everybody to cut their carbon emissions, but to focus on increases in China and India when their per capita carbon footprint is so much lower than ours seems like a rather unfair way to look at it.
If I had a kid away at college who was spending $16,500/year on stupid stuff, but had managed to only raise his spending by 1.2% and my other two kids were spending $7,500 and $1,700 and raised their spending by 2.5%, I wouldn't be slapping the first kid on the back and saying good job.
