The USA offshored manufacturing to China and Korea. We still are the ultimate consumer. At least until they wont loan us any more money to buy their production.
China was building coal-fired power plants at a rate of one per week (not sure current build rate). This suggest two things (1) increasing population and standard of living in China/rest of world and (2) apparently the rest of the world does not see global warming as a war that can be be fought in the face of growing population and basic human needs. This has implications for US energy strategy too.
A more informative and more problem solving look at "Who Consumes World's Energy" vs. the "yellow peril" yellow journalism of "Business Insider". World Bank: Energy Use Per Capita in kg of oil equivalent. US 7,225 kg of oil per person. China 1,895 kg of oil person. US could cut its energy use in half but we are lazy, ignorant, greedy and selfish. UK 3,282 kg of oil per person.
I could not make sense out of the World Bank numbers above (Kg per what time unit?). Global oil consumption is 0.5 gal per person per day and USA is 2.5 gal per person per day. LINK would not come up for me (hung up).
Per year. World Bank: Energy Use Per Capita in kg of oil equivalent. US 7,225 kg of oil per person. China 1,895 kg of oil person. US could cut its energy use in half but we are lazy, ignorant, greedy and selfish. UK 3,282 kg of oil per person.
OK thanks...for USA this equates to approx. 6 gallons oil equivalents per person per day. Actual oil use in USA is about 2.5 gal per person per day. So the remaining 3.5 gal per person per day is electricity/gas other energy converted to oil equivalents. This is approx.
The topic was total energy per country not oil use. I would guess China's oil use per capita is likely even lower on the scale than energy use as US oil is use 70% transportation related and China has many fewer cars per capita. Bottom line is that to be fair one must really look at per capita usage vs. country usage
Mojo@2 the international trade aspect of CO2 emissions recently considered here Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008 (or by doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006388108) With previous studies over at least a decade. It is big but I don't see that anybody has a plan how to deal with it. Wjtracy@4 I also hear the 'weekly china coal plant' thing a lot. The national coal burn has grown 8 to 10% a year since 2000. To me this is a more useful measure, because some of the new plants directly replace demolished 'clunkers' that were thermally inefficient and relatively bad emitters. China cars per cap: List of countries by vehicles per capita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is way down there, bumping up against Swaziland But the SUV commercials I see on TV, man o man. They are really trying to climb that list and it seems poor policy to me. In a decade or two, China may be among the leaders in % not fossil carbon in energy generation (hey it could happen...) At such a time, the domestic fleet of big obsoloete inefficient petro-cars is going to look not very clever. Thread title is "is" present tense. If you look instead at the total amount of fossil carbon that has been put 'into circulation', it is dominated by US and a few others, not the current 'league leading' China. Does global energy balance (and ocean acidification) respond to that total rather than this year's crop? This you will hear always from climate negotiators representing China and India, and never from those representing US and EU. Just sayin'
Not likely since China's industrial policy has lead them to be the No. 1 manufacturer and user of alternative technology particularly solar PV. China is bootstrapping into the 21st century on fossil fuels, just as US and other developed nations did in the 19th century. China will quickly pass US on percentage of energy generated by sustainable power.
It does not account for all increase. Population increase cannot be blamed for it either, it hasn't increased as much in last decade. It has to be increase in living standards and to lesser degree offshoring energy hungry manufacturing
