Thread by @mr_james_c

This chart might look like a chart of CO2 emissions but it's not. It's a Rorschach Test.

For some reason, otherwise intelligent Brits will look at it and conclude that:
- China is doing an amazing job building renewables
- the UK is a unique villain because of "historic emissions"
- China's emissions are set to decline... next year

The reactions are utterly bizarre, it's a cult.

Let's look at the farcical "historical emissions" claim.

Another way of saying "historical" is "cumulative". China's cumulative emissions overtook the UK nearly 30 years ago. And then look what happened?

Activists use the term "historical" rather than cumulative because they want to imply that the UK is somehow uniquely culpable. By doing this they're being China's useful idiots.

Next let's look at emissions per capita.

You often hear "well Chinese people don't emit that much, in the UK we're far more wasteful etc".

In reality Chinese EPC overtook the UK a decade ago. Today the average Chinese person emits nearly 2x the average UK person.

The only reason the myth persists is because of the ignorance of activists in the UK who cannot conceive of a nation of over a billion avid consumers in a thriving economy. In their heads China is still full of peasant farmers.

Ultimately I don't really have a beef with China. They have made a determination that economic prosperity and opportunity is the most important thing and you can only tackle emissions from a position of economic strength.

Contrast this with the UK which has taken the opposite approach - focusing on emissions in a way that causes severe economic damage making everyone poorer. The only way this ridiculous situation survives is that emissions reductions and climate are treated like a religion.

But the zealots that emerge from this have illogical positions: they attack anyone who might criticise China's approach while constantly flogging the UK for not doing enough.

Spectacularly unhealthy.

Because the hard of thinking have started to pick up on this thread, let's address the "well we're just exporting our emissions to China" (along with manufacturing jobs).

It is true that many Developed economies export emissions, and just China's total emissions are more than its domestic ones.

But as these charts show, the overwhelming majority of China's emissions are "local" - ie. Unsurprisingly 1bn or so avid consumers create a lot of emissions for themselves. While the UK mostly offshored industry and jobs with its emissions.

The continued ignorance around China's level of local emissions comes back to the point around ignorance I made in an earlier post - China is no longer the peasant farmer population of Western imagination.