> If you forced China to use less fossil fuels you would personally feel a much larger hit to your quality of life.

America imports more from Mexico, Canada, and the EU than China which ranks as #4 when you consider EU as a single entity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa...

Imports from China are a small fraction of GDP and offset by exports to other countries. OECD countries are largely exporting labor not the kind of heavy industry associated with heavy CO2 emissions. Which makes sense as China has relatively cheap labor, but they don’t get a discount on Oil.

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crystal_revenge 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> Mexico, Canada, and the EU

Do you want to take a wild guess as to which country is a top 3 importer to all of these countries/regions?

Here's a clue: it's the same country that is a major exporter of oil from GCC countries, and the wealth from those GCC countries is a major contributor of investment to US industry/financial sector.

The correct answer, is of course: China

The global is economy is very tightly interconnected and still very much driven by oil and fossil fuels in general. You can do all the accounting tricks you want, but developed Western lifestyles, especially in the US, are entirely supported and made possible by growing global fossil fuel usage.

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Retric 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> Do you want to take a wild guess as to which country is a top 3 importer to all of these countries/regions?

Canada imports 377 Billion from America and only 88 Billion from China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa...

So you clearly don’t actually understand global trade if you think being top 3 trading partner somehow drastically changes the equation here. China is a massive economy with 1/6th of the worlds population and a top 3 economy, so yes it does a lot of trade but economies are a lot more than just trade.

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crystal_revenge 15 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you're missing the point. A large part of the things we import from those countries indirectly come from China, so it's disingenuous to claim that China is not a major contributor to the US economy based solely on what we import directly from them.

For example the US's top product imported from Mexico are vehicles, electrical equipment and machinery. But those things are assembled from parts produced in China. So if you reduce China's use of energy you not only impact the direct trade that we benefit from but also the indirect trade.

And you still haven't addressed the way the global financial system is so tightly interconnected. GCC countries invest an estimated $1 trillion in the US, but a large chunk of that wealth comes from oil being sold to Asia, with China being one of the major purchasers.

The point stands that you can't meaningfully disconnect US energy usage from Chinese energy usage. If, for example, we were to stop GCC export to China (and not sell that oil in order to fight climate change) the US economy would ultimately collapse (this is in fact one of the major strategic levers that Iran has right now).

	▲	Retric 13 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> A large part of the things we import from those countries indirectly come from China 88B can’t be a particularly large part of 377B even before you consider that 88B is largely used domestically not for exports to the US and Canada also exports to China. Fundamentally something that costs 1$ can’t require more than 1$ of fossil fuels to produce without someone losing money on the transaction. Most goods do embody some carbon, but US agricultural goods being exported actually embody a much larger fraction of CO2 than most goods due to the nature of farming and the vast agricultural subsidies. This alone offsets the trade imbalance rendering US trade very close to carbon neutral. As to your specific point, product from Canada, Mexico etc, may have parts from China. But Canada isn’t simply redirecting 100% of its Chinese imports to the US. Further Canada, Mexico, and the EU and the US are also exporting goods to China directly and indirectly. Again, calculate the actual CO2 involved trade with China is basically irrelevant from a CO2 perspective relative to domestic emissions. > global financial system is so tightly interconnected We’re talking actual emissions which sums to 100% of global emissions. The environment doesn’t somehow double count pollution because it’s the result of the financial system. Thus the impact of the global financial system and everything else is already being accounted for.
	▲	epistasis 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		tl;dr The amount of fossil fuels it takes to make stuff is not nearly as big as the amount of fossil fuels we use to transport ourselves in cars. Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions is harder than production-based accounting, but it allows us to see more clearly what the CO2 cost of our lifestyle is. It's been ~5 years since I looked at one of those in detail, but I don't think it's changed much since then. The big takeaway for me was that for the US, which has massive emissions compared to Europe countries, urban/suburban design and land use was by far the biggest determinant of CO2 consumption, followed by income/wealth. Despite their higher wealth and ability to spend more, residents of urban areas have for lower emissions than suburban residents. See, for example, https://coolclimate.org/maps There's a tendency to think of consumption in zero-sum terms, but it turns out that energy efficiency has a massive impact on emissions, and also that intuition about quantities of emissions is really hard to gain without a lot of study.