The following five Friday facts come via an Economix blog post on NY Times.

• Carbon emissions from San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, California were the lowest among American metropolitan areas, but “are still more than four times the emissions in the brownest Chinese city (Daqing) and 10 times as high as the household emissions in the average Chinese city.”
• In 2006, the average Chinese urban household emitted 300 pounds of carbon dioxide from driving, not 30,000. In the most car-intensive Chinese cities, emissions are still less than one-tenth of emissions in the New York area.
• On average, Chinese households emit slightly over a ton of carbon dioxide each year due to electricity usage, less than a third of the least electricity intensive American cities. Electric appliances, as well as air conditioning, are luxury goods that are currently rare in the developing world
• Today, home heating is the most important source of emissions for Chinese households. They use coal, coal gas and propane, and these are pretty brown sources of energy. More significantly, in northern cities, heating is provided by the government, which creates few incentives for conservation.
• The average urban Chinese household’s carbon emissions from home heating are only about 1.2 tons per household, far less than the average American household’s emissions. The gap reflects our large homes, the cold winters in much of the United States and our intolerance for discomfort.

[Image source: Metropolitan Museum of Art]