China is going to beat the U.S. to decarbonization. This excuse never made sense, and by the end of this decade it will be unintelligible.

They pollute because they've turned into the West's industrial zone. They only make a bunch of stuff because we buy it

Do you know the CO2 footprint of the untold megatons of concrete poured into ghost cities? Germany is still manufacturing stuff, and would easily beat China in CO2/capita if they hadn't shut down the nuclear power plants.

That's a fair point, I hadn't considered it.

But it's a tough analysis to make regardless, because every widget I buy here in the West that comes from China (and that's pretty much 100% of the widgets) spits out CO2 in China. Now I look cleaner and they look dirtier than the case would be if the widget was made here.