[harryh]

Ah, OK. This is all time total. I was referring to current annual emissions.

Definitely two different things.

At projected rates when will China "catch up" in terms of all time total?

[titzer]

Just back of the envelope calculation, according to my link the US emitted 400B tons total and China is emitting ~10.8B annually now, so that'd be 37 years with no growth. So yes, the US is in a really deep hole here.

[imtringued]

It wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese somehow manage to never exceed 400B tons.

[harryh]

They're already at 200B and the rate is currently at 10B/year and rising rapidly.

So I strongly suspect they will.

[titzer]

Whoops, right. I forgot to subtract what they had already emitted. So it puts it more like ~20 years away.

[perfunctory]

Did you also forget to add what US keeps emitting?

[nicoburns]

This shows the US having per-capita emissions of roughly twice the EU and China (2017). I imagine it will be a good while until China catches up by that metric...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...