Math Is Math: ‘The Obama administration’s new (CO2) rules won’t put a dent in emissions’ – ‘In D-Day terms, the regulations are like trying to roll back the Nazis by sending two landing craft to Normandy and doing some TV interviews.’

the U.S. is only part of the global carbon-emissions picture, and a diminishing one at that.

We account for roughly a sixth of global emissions, and our emissions have fallen the past few years more than those of any other major country. In fact, we’ve already achieved about half of the administration’s 30 percent goal, in part through the boom in natural gas, which produces half the carbon emissions of coal.

The regulations aim to cut carbon emissions by 700 million tons by 2030. That sounds like a formidable number only if it is abstracted from the context of the rest of the world. As Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute notes, carbon emissions increased worldwide by about 700 million tons in 2011 alone. China increased its emissions by 3 billion tons from 2006 to 2012.