Has the U.S. Reduced Carbon Dioxide Emissions More Than Countries Who Are in the Paris Climate Agreement?

It’s complicated.

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In Wednesday’s vice presidential debate, Vice President Mike Pence claimed, “The United States has reduced CO2 more than the countries that are still in the Paris Climate Accord, but we’ve done it through innovation and we’ve done it through natural gas and fracking.”

The United States’ carbon emissions have steadily decreased over the past few years, with the EPA reporting as of the end of 2018 “national greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 10%” since 2005. Carbon emissions formed the vast majority of these greenhouse gas emissions. Using 2016, when the agreement began, as the baseline, it would appear that emissions have increased according to EPA data, from 6,524 million metric tons in 2016 to 6,677 million metric tons in 2018. However, while the EPA has not finalized data for 2019 yet, the International Energy Agency reports that the United States’ carbon emissions decreased by 140 million metric tons, still higher than 2016 emissions but in keeping with the general downward trend of U.S. carbon emissions.

In terms of raw carbon emissions reduction, the United States outpaces every other country in the rest of the world. Many countries in the Paris Agreement have seen smaller emission reductions or not seen their emissions decrease at all. Canada, for example, saw its emissions peak in 2007, then rapidly decline, but has seen a slow but steady increase in emissions since 2009 and has nearly returned to its 2005 levels of greenhouse gas emissions. China, too, has seen its carbon emissions continue to rise. 

But the United States is behind other countries that are party to the Paris Agreement when it comes to reductions as a percentage. The European Union, for example, is expected to meet, if not surpass, its goal of a 20 percent decline in emissions since 1990, and has seen a continuous steady decline in carbon emissions since joining the Paris Agreement. The United States, on the other hand, is above its 1990 levels of greenhouse emissions, and since its decline in emissions began after 2007, has seen a decline of just under 10 percent. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    As long as it continues to go down, there is no need for us to agree to the Paris Climate accord.

    China is a part of it and it has no intention of curtailing any CO2 emissions.

    The current top 3 polluters are China India and America. Which, honestly, makes the most of European CO2’s more irrelevant (don’t get me started on how Germany tossed its nuclear energy like fools and started buying more gas from their enemy, Russia).

    We are the only one with emissions going down from the major polluters without government intervention. Because Americans on their own are making more responsible choices, and technology is being created to use less energy.

    One easy example is this: most Americans have less need for a giant television. We have smartphones that we do everything on.

    Like me writing this comment to Alec Dent. I COULD spend the extraordinary effort to walk over to my pc across the room, and COULD strain my knees and back to sit down and wait for the pc to boot up to comment while battling that large house fly that entered my room....

    Or...I could continue to be lazy in my bed with my phone with the lights off saving electricity, under the covers which are warm and fuzzy from the cold October air in NJ.

    I think I know which choice I am destined for. And I will follow that destiny completely. None shall stop my either on terra firma.

    Millennials will save the world yet. Take that you energy consuming baby boomer bisons!

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  2. John M

    This article seems pretty incomplete without accounting for changes in population. Surely that's a relevant detail for a number of reasons. I don't know how it changes the outcome, but the fact-check would be a lot more trustworthy if it were covered. I guess a per-capita comparison would achieve the same thing.

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    1. JohnO

      Most complete would be to consider kg of CO2 per $PPP of GDP per capita. You can see World Bank data for that here, through 2016:
      https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD.KD?locations=EU

      It ends up the same bottom line as the 'fact check'. The US reduced kg CO2 per 2017 $PPP of GDP from .477 to .263 1990-2016. EU reduced from .296 to .155, US reduced considerably more absolutely, .214 v .141, but slightly less %-wise, -45% US, -48% EU. The EU numbers were and are lower, but the statement being evaluated is not 'US carbon emissions are lower', but about the change. And Canada for example went only from .491 to .391, -20% which indicates the absolute levels also have to do with geographic and economic structural differences between Europe and North America, not only climate policies. Part of the basic unrealism of climate change politics (as long as the Democrats know the GOP can block major action) is the idea any country would make and sustain really economically painful CO2 cuts, not gonna happen unless/until technology makes it cheap. The basic similarly of US and EU % reductions shows that general point I think, hard to to interpret those numbers as showing Paris Accord is a big deal.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Tom B.

      Per capita also looks pretty bad for the U.S. vs Europe.

      https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?stackMode=absolute&time=1800®ion=World

      You can drag the year on the bottom of the graph to look at the year.

      Or if you prefer chart form:

      https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute®ion=World

      The fact check is trustworthy. Europe has done a lot more to curb their relative CO2 emissions than the U.S. has, and that's even after accounting for their (20th century and current) lower per capita emissions.

      The U.S. only wins if you look in absolute reduction, and that's only because it emits so much CO2 to start with compared with other individual countries. If you aggregate Europe, their total emissions are currently close to the U.S., but they've reduced their CO2 emissions since 1990 by around 30% while the U.S. is right around their 1990 levels.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Earl King

    We could roughly decrease our co2 emissions by 30% if we do just one thing. Switch from gasoline to natural gas to power our internal combustion engines. We do even more by having more nuclear plants. Both of which are fought tooth and nail by wacko left. It wouldn’t disrupt our economy or put people out of work.

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    1. tla

      NG powered cars make no sense beyond fleet vehicles. There isn’t meaningful opposition against it other than economics. We don’t have the refueling infrastructure to make it viable. It’s much easier to go directly to electric cars which are effectively increasingly powered by natural gas and renewables via the power grid. I agree with nuclear power, and there is growing idealogical splintering within the environmental community. Healthy disagreement there is a good thing.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Earl King

        I laying in a gas pipeline to most city gas stations would simple. Switching our trucking industry similarly should be easy as well. Yes many drivers can switch to electric cars is they have $40,000 or they only travel low miles and can have the charging station in their home. Apartment renters screwed. Anybody who drives a long distance or anybody who wants an SUV. Nobody in rural parts will go that direction. If you are a traveling salesmen how long can you afford to wait to charge up? Nat Gas, have the infrastructure. A difference of opinion.

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  4. Mark

    Not that complicated

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