I've seen this argument before but I'm not sure it's the case (anymore). Example: https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2.

I've also seen other similar conclusions elsewhere. It's worth looking into.

I was skeptical of Andrew McAfee' More from Less (Listened to him on EconTalk) because of his data didn't take into account outsourcing production.

So thanks for this resource; will read later.

I assume you mean "plant" as in manufactory. It's a good question in general though I don't believe it was a major factor in 2019 specifically. That ship sailed decades ago.

If you mean "plant" as in Kingdom plantae it goes the other way as US exports have become increasingly polar (either primary extractive outputs like mining and agriculture or ultra high tech like super-precision bearings and certain software)

What do you mean by "exporting pollution in the form of plant outsourcing"?

You want to build a widget in a factory. The factory consumes 1 MW of power to operate and emits 5 kg per hour of pollutants into the air as a byproduct of widget production.

If the work the factory does is outsourced to China, the widgets don't necessarily cost less energy or emissions to produce. So you've just shifted emissions from one country to another — it's an accounting trick, not a genuine reduction.

seems pretty clear to me: you used to manufacture X in the US, now you import X from the US. The pollution that X used to generate in the US is off the US's emissions sheet.

Also this increases shipping requirements. Many people say that global shipping also contributes to global warming.

“Other people are also outsourcing emissions” is an irrelevant point, especially in an article about how the U.S. emissions have fallen in the last year and when the conversation is about why.

That the U.S. started 20 (ish) years ago is a pertinent point, especially as the article points out that the preceding year saw U.S. emissions increase.

If you buy goods instead of producing them, the emissions are shifted largely to the producing country.

It s therefore important to look at the footprint of imported and exported goods.

I assume he means exporting manufacturing and other "dirty" industries. IE, we import rare earth based products from China because they can mine them so cheaply, at least partially because they don't have the same concern for environmental impact of the mining.

Sounds like they are tacitly advocating repatriating manufacturing to cleaner energy countries and putting pollution tariffs on products based on how dirty or clean they were manufactured...

My guess is the OC is alluding to the large amount of manufacturing that happens in China. If that were to occur in the US then the pollution would happen here.