Joe Romm says "yes we can". Is the U.S 7.7% decline over 6 years impressive? Recall that greenhouse gas emissions are a world public bad. The key statistic to track is the globe's production of greenhouse gas emissions. Using data from the World Development Indicators, here is the per-capita CO2 graph over time. Note that all three lines have a positive slope. The world's per-capita emissions are rising. China's emissions are sharply increasing after 2001 and India's per-capita emissions are rising linearly. Keep in mind that "population" is also growing.
This graph is the main reason that I wrote
Climatopolis. I would be more likely to agree with Dave Roberts and Joe Romm about their carbon mitigation optimism if they could tell a convincing story about how carbon mitigation efforts in the U.S (such as the power generation transition from coal to natural gas) will affect choices by India and China and other developing nations who are now building their power plants.
