Actually, in spite of all the rhetoric, that is not what the data shows. The USA per capita emissions are the wide-red line in the graphic linked by the thumbnail at left.
…The following graph (using data from the US EIA here in .xls) needs little interpretation. It shows post-Kyoto per capita carbon dioxide emissions in each of the EU-15 countires as well as the US for 1997 to 2005 (the last year for which data was available, but I don’t think that extending to 2007 would make much difference). The overwhelming majority of countries of the EU-15 saw per capita emissions increase faster that the US. The lesson that one should take is not that the US is succeeding, but rather that the success of the EU has been overstated,…
Dr. Pielke provided a link to the EIA data in Excel format, so you can do your own data munging as you wish.
Please don’t conclude from the above that Roger or I are advocating that the US policy on carbon emissions has been optimal. Regular Seekerblog readers know that I am a strong proponent of a revenue-neutral carbon tax policy. I’m just trying to fulfill our mission of identifying the most objective sources and debunking the popular mythology.
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