What Obama Won't Tell You About U.S. Carbon Emissions

Media reports on last week’s climate-change agreement between President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping like to stress that the “world’s two biggest polluters” had come to a “historic” agreement. While China and the U.S are the top carbon emitters, that description misses some important economic points.
 
There are several ways to view carbon emissions. Obama likes to cite total emissions—perhaps because that puts the U.S. in the worst light. But emissions comparisons can also be based on per-capita usage and as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP).
 
According to the World Bank, the U.S. emitted 17.6 metric tons per person (MTP) in 2010. But the U.S. wasn’t first on the list; it came in ninth. Qatar was first with 40.3 MTP, followed by several other Middle Eastern countries. The one European country with higher levels than the U.S. was Luxembourg, with 21.4 MTP.  Saudi Arabia came 10^th followed by Australia, with 16.9 MTP. And Canada came in 14^th with 14.7 MTP.
 
Both Canada and Australia have developed economies very similar to the U.S. only smaller, and their carbon output per person is not much lower than that of the U.S. But do you ever hear the media and Obama trashing them as environmental polluters?
 
Now let’s consider carbon emissions as a share of GDP. This is perhaps the most important comparison because the U.S. economy, at nearly twice the size of China and more than three times the size of Japan, drives the world. You would expect a thriving economy to produce more carbon emissions than an economy that produces little or nothing.
 
And yet, according to the World Bank (2010), the U.S. comes in at 37^th (kilograms per purchasing power parity dollars of GDP). South Africa is 8^th, China 9^th, Russia
12^th, Australia 20^th, Canada 35^th and India 36^th.
 
What this means is that the U.S. is one of the most efficient countries with respect to carbon emissions. It has by far the largest GDP, but is way down the list in the amount of energy it uses to produce that GDP.
 
And the U.S. is becoming even more efficient as it shifts to cleaner fossil fuels, such as natural gas; Obama’s green energy push has had very little impact, because renewable sources still provide a relatively small percentage of U.S. energy.
 
Yet instead of praising U.S. efficiency and progress, all we hear from liberals and environmentalists is the U.S. is the world’s second largest polluter.