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1. Was Trump right when he tweeted about climate change? @StevenMufson and I look at the facts on emissions from the U.S. and China (and other countries). washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro…
2. First, Trump is not wrong to highlight U.S. emissions reductions. We looked at the change between 2005, the peak U.S. emissions year, and 2017. The U.S. showed a reduction of over 800 million tons in annual CO2 emissions. (Source: @gcarbonproject icos-cp.eu/GCP/2018)
3. That's the largest *total* emissions cut shown by any country over that time period. But then, the U.S. is the 2nd largest emitter, so any change is big. If you look at it as a *percentage* reduction, then the U.S. number looks less impressive.
4. A number of large economies have done better, including the UK, Italy, and France.
5. The bigger point is whether China has emitted more than the U.S. The answer is that no it has not.
6. We found, based on the @gcarbonproject data that go back to 1959, that the U.S. emitted almost 90 billion tons more CO2. Granted, China is catching up fast.
7. Big picture -- U.S. emissions are down some, but U.S. is still a huge emitter and still the largest historical emitter. Other countries are well aware of our progress, but we should not be surprised to find that they see it in context. /end
