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I don't believe the numbers from China and India. I do believe the numbers from the US and its allies.

I don't believe the numbers from China and India. I do believe the numbers from the US and its allies.

The numbers are estimates based on what they import and what the claim to produce in terms of coal and petroleum.  We can measure CO2 in the air pretty well, so everything should add up to match that.

This is the problem. I'd have to know more (be educated) on how accurate measurements can be taken in China, without China being involved in them.

"We" really should look at nuclear power again. Stop the coal and stop the fracking. Wind and solar have too many limitations from what I seen, and yes, I've done work in both industries so I've had the discussions. They are mostly not cost-effective in many locations. They have to make perfect sense to the developer in order to be pursued. When the subsidies went away in 2011 or so in Illinois, they mostly all pulled out/abandoned their projects. Cost me a lot of work, actually.

Wind and solar are more cost-effective than ever. That's why they're being deployed on such a large scale in Texas and even other conservative states for economic reasons alone.... They are competitive with if not cheaper than gas generation throughout most parts of the country.... This deployment just needs to be accelerated.

Nuclear is not cost-competitive. It makes sense to keep existing generation open but new nuclear has a long way to go to become economic, even with these small-scale reactors in development and soon to be tested in some places.

Wind and solar are more cost-effective than ever. 

Not where I work. 

I've already said this before, but...

in 2019, India had less than half of US emissions.  China has almost double our emissions, but had no increases in 2019 and should be seeing decreased CO2 output for the foreseeable future.

They are doing their part.  We are not doing ours.  We are the 2nd largest producer of CO2 in the world.  We can certainly make a dent.

Assuming Cincy's post above is accurate, China saw a threefold increase in CO2 output from the usage of coal from ~2000-15. 

Now that they're replacing coal with oil and natural gas (those plots keep going up), they may be reducing their output of CO2, but it was from an absurdly high baseline that had skyrocketed over a decade and a half. 

Wind and solar are more cost-effective than ever. That's why they're being deployed on such a large scale in Texas and even other conservative states for economic reasons alone.... They are competitive with if not cheaper than gas generation throughout most parts of the country.... This deployment just needs to be accelerated.

Nuclear is not cost-competitive. It makes sense to keep existing generation open but new nuclear has a long way to go to become economic, even with these small-scale reactors in development and soon to be tested in some places.

I still think unless we figure out energy storage in a big way, wind and solar will only be niche players in the long run. 

Obviously the world would be a lot cleaner if we all had solar panels on our roof, battery storage in our garage, and those batteries charged our electric cars while we slept. 

But the problem right now is that the upfront costs of solar are expensive, the difficulty mining the elements needed for the batteries (and scaling that production widely) needed for both homes and cars, and the cost of the batteries, make this a difficult economic play for most people. 

Especially when my electric bill--in California where electricity is relatively expensive--rarely goes over $100/mo except perhaps in the 1-2 months of deep summer and I actually run the AC. If we assume I'm basically trying to amortize an expense compared to a $1500/year run rate, and solar plus a battery wall might cost me $20-30K--and I have to worry about maintenance and wear-out of those components? Yeah, it makes sense long-term, but if I have to assume I'll be in the house 15+ years just to come close to breaking even, it makes it hard to justify.

Yep.  There are costs to everything, and there's no such thing as a free lunch.  Wind power has negative environmental impacts too, no matter where you put the wind farms.